William H. Sylvis and the National Labor Union

A history of the first national federation of trade unions
in the United States and an account of the life and
work of its founder — the outstanding labor leader of
the Civil War period.

BY CHARLOTTE TODE

k

William H. Sylvis AND THE

National Labor Union

Charlotte Todes

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1942

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS CO., INC.
PRINTED in u. S. A.

CONTENTS

Introduction 7

1. Early Years 9

11. The Civil War Years 22

hi. The Emergence of the National Labor

Union 52

iv. Problems and Issues 73

v. “Valiant Champion” 110

Reference Notes 117

Appendix 121

Index 125

What would it prop us as a nation were we to preserve
our institutions and destroy the morale of the people;

save our Constitution and sink the masses into hopeless
ignorance, poverty, and crime ; all the forms of our re-
publican institutions to remain on the statute books and
the great body of people sunk so low as to be incapable of
comprehending their most simple tmd essential principles,
with the wealth of the nation concentrated in the hands
of the few, and the toiling many reduced to squalid pov-
erty and utter dependence on the lords of the land?

From an address by William II. Sylvis at
the convention of the Iron Molders Inter-
national Union in 18G5.

INTRODUCTION

William H. Sylvis was America’s foremost labor leader
at a time when industrial expansion, ushered in by the
Civil War, brought in its wake a new labor movement.
While white and Negro, side by side, were giving their lives
to blot out slavery, a great upsurge of labor was simul-
taneously laying the foundations of the future labor move-
ment of America. The lives of American workingmen and
farmers came to be dominated increasingly by the power
of a small group of financiers, manuf actui’ers, and mer-
chants who had accumulated vast wealth out of the exi-
gencies of a war situation. To be a wage earner was fast
becoming the way of life of larger sections of the American
population. Extremes of poverty and wealth were appar-
ent everywhere. Discontented with their status as wage
earners, workingmen persisted in their hope of sharing in
the wealth which their increasing productivity was creat-
ing and of keeping accessible the vast public lands being
given to corporations bent on power and domination.

The Jeffersonian tradition of a republic of free and
independent mechanics and farmers continued as the basic
philosophy of the common people. The one and a half
million German, Irish, and other immigrants who had
entered the country in the decade of the ’fifties, to escape
famine and tyranny in the Old World, had strengthened
the will to realize these concepts. Anti-monopoly sentiment
against encroachments and usurpation of authority of the
privileged few was widespread among workers and farm-
ers. To them the inalienable rights of the people affirmed

7

8

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

id

hi

r s;::;' ~ —7 ~

Question. W.,ld,„„ „d 7,!:^7 '™u,'“" '*J*"

a nation of small producers as thTha f C ° DCeiVed ° f
the ]d eal s of Jeffersonian democracy. “ ^ Perpetuatm S

The?icto7y W 0 l7?h! e S Tuth Irea 1 7 b “ ffinnin S t0 take f»™.

cipation of the N „ slaveholders and the eman-

the way for the ad Zr had cleared

conflict” was shaping > C ,* pit ? Il8m - A “ irre P r ^sible

In this period of transition and of eh •
relationships, William H. Sylvis camp , H " S ' ng social
of labor and its most > orward as a leader

experience and few precedent" to” ^ liUle

in establishing one of the ^ he SUCCeeded

America, the international ^ of

and guided the course of the \r»r , T , He lnitla tcd
lea’s first national fedeLtion of T" ^ Uni ° n ’
organizations, which exerted wid "T a " d WOrk “« men ’ s
1870. He gave unparalleled ene r “ ““
proving the status of the workinfLn k ° f im "

sought to bring their class needs to the t** 7***
the formation of a labor party and . °? efr0nt throu 2 h
Power and strength through ties of ‘ f lnCre9Se labor ’ s
darity. Indeed, it may well be said th t eniatlraal so,i -
he identify his life with that of the lab “ C °" lpleteI l' did
‘he history of labor in the ’sixties cannot h" th * t

the life and work of William H. Sylvis. " Sf>parated from

I. EARLY YEARS

William H. Sylvis stemmed from a family which had
endured the hardships and rigors of the early American
pioneers. Of Irish-French parentage, Sylvis was born in
Armagh, Indiana County, Pennsylvania, on November 26,
1828, the second son of ten children. His father, a wagon
maker, worked now as a journeyman and now as a small
businessman and moved from place to place in search of a
better livelihood. The children were pressed into work as
soon as they were able. Because of the distance to schools
and the need for their labor, the boys did not even succeed
in mastering the rudiments of a common school education.
Bankrupted by the crisis of 1837, his father was forced
to leave home and tramp from place to place for work.
William went to live with a wealthy family and worked
on the farm and in the household in return for his upkeep.
Here he managed to get only three months of schooling
each year. Whatever learning he acquired was the result
of his own persistent efforts to improve himself. It is said
that he learned to write only later, after he had been
elected secretary of his local union in 1857 and had been
obliged to engage in correspondence with other local
secretaries. 1

At the age of eighteen he returned home to aid his father
in establishing a wagon shop which proved unsuccessful. He
then sought employment in an iron foundry where he later
learned the trade of iron molding, and tried his hand alter-
nately as journeyman and small owner. Until 1852 when

9

10

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

he married and moved to Philadelphia, he continued to
send all that he could spare of his earnings, beyond his
own bare needs, to support his impoverished family.
In Philadelphia, he found employment as a journeyman
molder at wages which scarcely provided for his family’s
needs. It is said that at this time he became “a great reader
and student of politics and especially of the elementary
principles of political economy,” although his letters con-
tinued to show a “lamentable deficiency” in spelling and
grammar. 2

As early as 1855 the iron molders of Philadelphia had
organized a local union but it was not until the crisis of
1857 that Sylvis came into the labor movement. To resist
a 12 per cent reduction in wages, Sylvis and the iron
molders in his shop, among whom were union men,
pledged not to accept the wage cut and declared a strike.
Sylvis became secretary of the shop organization and an
active member of the picketing committee called the “Com-
mittee on Corners,” which posted men at the corners of
streets to watch for scabs. He proved to be a zealous
striker and was among the few men who kept their pledge
not to return to work at the reduced pay. Admitted into
membership in the union together with his fellow shop
workers in December, 1857, he was elected recording secre-
tary the following month. This marked the beginning of
his career as an active trade unionist. Despite many ob-
stacles he worked at his trade and now devoted his time
and interests entirely to building and extending the mold-
ers’ union nationally and to the wider problems confront-
ing workingmen.

EARLY YEARS

11

The Labor Movement in the ’Fifties

Sylvis’ first efforts in the Iron Molders Union m the
late ’fifties were overshadowed by the larger drama of the
unfolding of the anti-slavery crisis. Forces of widely vary-
ing convictions and purposes had united in the Republican
Party which was formed, in 1856, as the common rallying
ground against the continued expansion of slavery. Abo-
litionists and free soilers, workingmen, farmers of the
West, free Negroes, small businessmen and manufacturers,
whether Whig, Democrat, or Socialist, had joined to-
gether. They comprised those seeking to preserve the
Union against division, those determined not to yield an-
other inch of America’s free soil to the slave system, those
who saw the need of abolishing slavery if labor was to
safeguard its interests. All of these groups were girding
themselves for a showdown with the politically powerful
slavocracy of the South and their supporters among the
financier; and merchants of the North. Old political
parties were breaking up and men were taking sides on the
basis of issues of crucial significance for the future o
a democratic America. The stirring call of “free soil, free
labor, free land, and free men” was soon to be the battle

cry of freedom.

The labor movement which Sylvis entered at this time
was still numerically small and it was, in fact, scarcely
audible as an organized force in the great social struggle
Since the introduction of machinery and the employment
of men and women in workshops and factories in America,
workingmen had recognized the need to form trade unions,

12

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

to act together in defense of their common interests In

“ d ’ thirti0S ’ th - be

the berth " Ca f °T tS f ° r mde P endent political action and

period TheTh°H the democratic movements of the

period. They had succeeded in extending suffrage, obtain-

obt - reC P ,I educat!0n > reducing working hours, and

workT'tT to ^ Ii f tati ° n ° f h ° UrS ° f work “ Public

Buren in l« t7’ J ^ ***““* Mart “ Van
uren 1836 They had succeeded in defeating the con-
spiracy laws aimed at destruction of th» t j

r d r^rii r S

ZZ -K thC PreVai,i ” e a "«-mo, lop o,yi„tij:: d
rolf rthenr ^ a " -'P-tant

a la™ P e" 3 dECadeS ’ Jaoks onian democracy owed

S r • *-

d«h., T . El,-, „ i‘3

St . 1 ™ 4 r.„,

841 Mas more truly a workingmen’s party than had ho
the case with any otlier great political party in our ooun
try or with that party either before or since.” » Later as
the Democratic Party fell under the domination of South
ern leaders large sections of the workingmen folio Jd

ntoa r trr d {r ° e land aDd ab0l,ti ™ «* slavery
into the Liberty Party and then into the Party of Free

Se e “TJh7 “ : T , Under Platf °™ ° f ' “-tain-

h rights of free labor against the aggression of the
^ve power and to secure free soil to alrec peopled

I

EARLY YEARS

13

Ultimately these parties merged with the Republican
Party. The Democratic Party, however, continued to exert
influence over the laboring masses.

As the anti-slavery struggle approached its climax, the
agitation for the distribution of free land to actual settlers
and for the abolition of slavery became more directly
linked. George Henry Evans, leading land reformer, who
had the ear of the organized workingmen, was now finally
persuaded that the support of artisans, mechanics, and
factory workers for Homestead legislation could be as-
sured only by advocating abolition of slavery. He reversed
his previous stand and favored the abolition of both
chattel and wage slavery. Abolitionists like Wendell
Phillips voiced the fears of many workingmen that free
labor in the North could never preserve and extend its free-
dom unless slavery was abolished.* Fear of land monopoly
and the domination of a landed aristocracy was wide-

* Supporters of the slave power were attempting to justify slavery
by propagandizing that there was no essential difference between
slavery and free labor. The following quotation from the writings of
a Southern publicist expressed this view: “What is the essential char-
acter of Slavery, and in what does it differ from the servitude of other
countries? If I should venture on a definition, I should say that where
a man is compelled to labor at the will of another, and to give him
much the greater portion of the product of his labor, there Slavery
exists; and it is immaterial by what sort of compulsion the will of
the laborer is subdued. It is what no human being would do without
some sort of compulsion. He cannot be compelled to labor by blows.
No, but what difference does it make, if you can inflict any other
sort of torture which will be equally effectual in subduing the will?
if you can starve, him, or alarm him for the subsistence of himself or
his" family? And is it not under this compulsion that the freeman
labors?” (James D. B. De Bow, Industrial Resources of the Southern
and Western States, Vol. II, p. 223. New Orleans, 1852.)

14

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

spread. There were some who were concerned about the fact
that if the expansion of slavery continued, the future of
free public lands would be imperiled. To them, a nation of
small farmers was the barrier to a slave system of agricul-
ture. The anti-monopoly sentiment of the workingmen and
the farmers of the Jacksonian days had not visibly changed.
Free land, free enterprise and equal opportunity for wide-
spread ownership of industry were the core and essence of
this sentiment. No special group was to be permitted to
usurp the privileges and rights granted to all under the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The slave power was
consolidating its opposition to free land for settlers, while
Homestead legislation to grant land to actual settlers out
of the public domain was the promise of the new coalition
in the Republican Party.

The trade unions of the decades prior to the Civil War
did not become rooted and did not maintain their continu-
ous existence as stable workingmen’s organizations. Vast
unsettled lands and a rising industrialism offered oppor-
tunities for varied types of employment, for ownership of
tools and of farms.

The labor population was fluctuating from workshop
to farm, from journeyman to master and back again to
journeyman. Periods of crises and depression with con-
sequent severe unemployment depleted the workingmen’s
organizations and left them without funds and members.
But in the decade of the ’fifties, industry and mechaniza-
tion spread to new regions and means of communication
were facilitated by the development of railroads. Increasing
specialization was creating a sharper separation between
journeyman and employer. As a result, new knotty prob-

EARLY YEARS

15

lems presented themselves to the wage earners and once
again they resorted to trade union organization and
action to protect their economic interests. A founder of the
machinists’ and blacksmiths’ union noted in 18o9 the
changes in their conditions of employment, which had im-
pelled them to establish a national organization, and em-
phasized that authority of the owners was now being dele-
gated to the superintendents and foremen, and men and
masters were becoming estranged. 5

Encroachments on wages, longer hours, the breakdown
of wage levels through unregulated apprenticeship were
immediate threats which endangered the economic inter-
ests of the workingmen and compelled them to strengthen
their unions. The establishment of trade unions became the
primary objective of workers of the ’fifties, and all other
questions, although not ignored, were secondary.

The movement for free land to actual settlers, led by
land reformers many of whom were themselves skilled
workmen, continued to claim labor support. To them the
opportunity for free land was not merely an avenue of
escape; it was a weapon against uncontrolled exploitation. 6
But the trade unions which took on new life in the ’fifties
did not agitate for Homestead legislation as labor organi-
zations had previously, nor did they oppose it.

The anti-slavery issue was also reaching a head. Terence
V. Powderly, later leader of the Knights of Labor, wrote
of the attitude of the workingmen towards this question:

“The white mechanic felt that only a change of condi-
tions were necessary to place him in the same category
with the colored man. No wonder then that the desire to
secure freedom for all the inhabitants of the United States

16

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

began to grow among the members of labor organizations,
and gave them renewed zeal in the work of emancipation.

he right to live, the right to work, and the liberty to
work for home and family instead of for a master is in-
erent m man, but the mechanic could not feel secure in
that right while the slave owner had it in his power to

old one portion of mankind in serfdom the most degrad-
mg and brutalizing.

“The anti-slavery agitation and the organization of the
mechanics of the United States kept pace with each other;
both were revolutionary in their character, and though the
agitations differed in methods, the ends in view were the
same, mu: the freedom of the man who worked.” 1

Founding the National Holders Union

Early in the decade of the ’fifties, local unions of jour-
neymen printers met to form a national association to

Va f e . s a 8 ainst competitive conditions, and
in 54 the hat finishers organized a national federation,
boon after, the spinners, the iron puddlers and the black-
smiths and machinists organized on a national scale Dur-
ing the crisis of 1857 and in the period of unemployment
m the wake of the crisis, the iron molders, like other skilled

craftsmen, faced lowered wages and the return of “odious
rules. Iron works wcre stm largdy un(jer

J l° 1 ii erS Were com P eUcd to buy rammers, shovels, sieves dust

patterns MaJiv” faC ' " sed <™P* flasks and

room. Yeatty LI"!/" 1 to ^ weekl y rent for their floor
ment one-third of th “ lr0d ’ lced and enforce the agrce-

If the shop operan d "'“ S retai ” ed unt “ th e end of the year.

P perated only nine months, molders fearing to go else-

EARLY YEARS

17

ownership, but the crisis had intensified the trend towards
specialization, and centralization and new methods and
machines were making possible the use of semi-skilled work-
ingmen at lower pay. Mutual protection and defense of
their economic interests demanded closer co-operation of
the local unions through national organization.

In this movement Sylvis came to the fore. His organiz-
ing ability was an important factor in effecting national
unity. As recording secretary of the strongest local,
Sylvis was in communication with most of the seventeen
scattered molders’ unions. Isolated as they were and finan-
cially weak, it had been easy to defeat them in strikes. The
Philadelphia union had succeeded in maintaining wages
through the crisis period but it was now being realized
that national organization was necessary to equalize
working conditions throughout the country and thereby to
avert a general breakdown of wage levels.

Acting on a proposal by Sylvis, a committee of the
Philadelphia molders’ local of which he was secretary ad-
dressed a letter to all locals in December, 1858, on the
advisability of holding a national convention. On June 15,
on assurance of a favorable response, a call was issued for
a national convention to be held on July 5, 1859, signed by
Isaac A. Sheppard as president and Sylvis as recording
secretary. Seven years later Sylvis commented on the in-
experience of the thirty-five delegates from twelve local

where to work had to remain idle. Store pay was the rule and cash

pay the exception ” (H. E. Hoaglund, “Early Organizations of the

Iron Molders,” International Molders Journal, Nov. 1911, Vol.
XLVII, pp. 8-21.)

18

II

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

unions who gathered together at the first national conven-
tion of molders:

“When the first convention of iron molders met in Phila-
delphia, July 5, 1859, for the purpose of consultation and
general organization, no definite plan was formed or could
be formed of the results which such a union of hearts and
union of hands could bring about. Nor was it possible to
divine what the great objects of such an organization
should be. A grating wrong existed, which it was necessary
to remove and all felt the necessity of action. . . . All that
could be done at that time, however, was to interchange
views and make the most of such crude ideas as could be
gathered from a free expression of opinion, based upon the
experience of those who felt the evils we sought to redress.
No settled policy was decided upon beyond the simple fact
that the convention adjourned to meet again in six months.

“A start was made and men began to think for the first
time in their lives. Reflection developed new ideas and these
ideas soon began to assume definite form.” 8

The delegates set up a loose national federation with
only advisory functions. Sylvis and a committee of molders
were appointed to prepare an address to the iron molders
of the United States. This address, written by Sylvis,
stressed the growing impoverishment of the “laboring
classes” and pointed to the power of numbers.

“What position are we as mechanics to hold in society?”
it asked. “Are we to receive an equivalent for our labor
sufficient to maintain us in comparative independence and
respectability to procure the means with which to educate
our children and qualify them to play their part in the
world’s drama; or must we be forced to bow the suppliant

EARLY YEARS 19

knee to wealth and earn by unprofitable toil a life too void
of solace to confirm the very chains that bind us to our
doom? ... In union there is strength and in the formation
of a national organization, embracing every molder in the
country, a union founded upon a basis broad as the land
in which we live, lies our only hope. Single-handed we can
accomplish nothing, but united there is no power of wrong
that wc cannot openly defy.” 3

The object of the new body was declared to be “to
place ourselves on a foundation sufficiently strong to
secure us from further encroachments and to elevate the
moral, social, and intellectual condition of every molder in
the country.” 10 The address, embodied in the constitution
of the National Union as its preamble and adopted at the
next convention of the iron molders in 1860, was later used
by other unions as a model.

The national union of molders was first convened when
strikes were in progress in Albany, Providence, and Port-
chester to restore the 1857 scale of wages and to regulate
the apprenticeship system. The successful conduct of these
strikes became the principal concern of the new organiza-
tion. Immediate practical steps were taken to aid the
strike in Albany which had been in process for three
months and a resolution declared that “the cause of the
molders in Albany is the cause of our craft at large.”
When the second convention was called in 1860, in Albany,
the national body had succeeded through financial and
moral support in winning the Albany strike and had
gained considerable prestige among the molders and
greater confidence in its own power.

It was at this convention, on motion by Sylvis that the

20

WILLIAM II. SYLVIS

I

convention “does now resolve itself into a national union,”
that the National Union of Iron Molders was officially
launched. Through Sylvis’ active participation and leader-
ship, the union proceeded to work out a system of financ-
ing itself and of consolidating its gains. Although he was
nominated for president at the convention, Sylvis was not
elected to that office in 1860 but was instead chosen as the
union’s national treasurer.

By the time of the third convention in Cincinnati in
1861, on the eve of the Civil War, the national union had
already forty-four affiliated local bodies. So impressive
were the results of this rapid growth that the Cincinnati
press called the union the “largest mechanical association
in the world.” 11 Over $6,000 had been raised during the
year by the union through voluntary assessments of which
more than $5,000 had gone directly to the aid of strikes.
But demands from striking locals had depleted the local
treasuries and calls for assistance were too numerous for
adequate help. The convention decided on a compulsory
tax on the members. Fears arose over the ability of the
national union to survive and a note of caution crept into
the proceedings. It was agreed that strikes were to be
“discountenanced until every other remedy had been tried
and failed.” 12 Action in the convention also indicates that
the members of the Iron Molders Union were among the
first to raise the question of an eight-hour day.

The molders’ convention of 1861 was a test of Sylvis’
steadfastness. A group of molders sought to oust him
from office by discrediting him as treasurer of the union
on the grounds of misuse of funds. There appears to have
been no justification for this attack but Sylvis had evi-

EARLY YEARS

21

dently antagonized a group in the local union by his per-
sistent and devoted interest in national organization and
his use of funds for this purpose. The group in opposition
held the narrow view that the weaker locals would be a
financial drain on the strongest, the Philadelphia, local,
and thus a national union would be a hindrance rather
than an aid to the local’s advance.

This group succeeded in preventing Sylvis from par-
ticipating as a delegate in the convention, but he attended
as an officer of the National Union. Although he was de-
nied the right to vote or hold office by the ruling of the
presiding officer, he reported on the state of finances and
defended himself vigorously against his accusers. He par-
ticipated actively in the proceedings and his great organ-
izing ability contributed in a fundamental way to the
solution of the problems before the union. His appointment
as a member of the committee to revise the constitution
excited considerable opposition but even attacks on his per-
sonal integrity did not swerve him from his devotion to
the advancement of the union.

II. THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

1

1 he Iron Molders Union, so promising at the outset,
did not meet in 1 862. Its progress was interrupted by the
Civil War. After the election of Lincoln, the country
teetered on the brink of war. Even before his inaugura-
tion, seven Southern states had seceded. Industry and
trade were paralyzed by the uncertainties of the situation
and thousands of workingmen were thrown out of employ-
ment. Leading newspapers, reflecting the outlook of the
Whig elements in the Republican Party, called for con-
ciliation with the secessionists. The banking and commer-
cial classes of the North who feared loss of trade and
investments in the South inspired demands for compromise
m the press. The New York Herald, the newspaper
with the largest circulation in the country, expressed
the dominant pro-slavery appeasement sentiments of
the Democratic Party and opposed any “coercion of the
South.”

The cry of “preserve the Union” raised by the coalition
forces of the Republican Party became the cry of a large
section of labor. Many workingmen, influenced by prevail-
ing press opinion, hoped to avert war by compromise with
the South.

Sylvis’ position at this time reflected the confusions
of a period in which political realignments and social
changes were taking place with groat rapidity. Like many
skilled mechanics, his party ties had been with the Demo-
cratic Party. He had voted for Lincoln’s opponent,

22

23

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

Stephen Douglas, candidate of the Northern Democrats
in the elections of 1860. The country was still sharply
divided after Lincoln’s election; fear of war was wide-
spread. As events were hurtling towards a climax, Sylvis
wanted to avoid conflict but he was staunch in his belief
that the Union must be preserved intact, at any cost. At
a time when even the most conscious forces within the Re-
publican Party were indecisive and wavering on the crucial
issues before them, Sylvis, too, failed to understand clearly
the course of events. The trade union movement itself was
neither a significant force numerically, nor was it a suffi-
ciently strong factor in influencing national affairs.

Sylvis’ mistaken and futile hope that further compro-
mises with the South might avert war and yet preserve the
union led him to join his fellow-moldcrs in an effort to call
a national peace convention of mechanics and laborers.
At a meeting initiated by the molders in the border state
of Kentucky held at Louisville on December 28, 1860,
Sylvis participated in the preparations for nationwide
meetings of workingmen and became a member of the Com-
mittee of Thirty-Four which was set up for this purpose.
The resolution adopted at the meeting declared that “work-
ingmen without distinction of party believe that our na-
tional prosperity and hopes of happiness depend on the
perpetuity of the Union” and urged “the resignation of
those among their representatives at Washington who,
ultra and sectional men, are now above their actions im-
periling the safety of the Union.” 13

The Committee of Thirty-Four issued a call to labor for
a national convention on February 22 in Philadelphia.
This paralleled a similar move by Democrats supporting a

24

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

policy of conciliation with the South, who gathered in
Washington early in February at a peace convention. The
Democrats met in the hope of influencing Lincoln’s policies
and did not finally adjourn until the President’s inaugu-
ral. 14 The workingmen’s anti-war convention was held as
scheduled on Washington’s birthday and Sylvis was one
of its leading participants. But the workingmen failed to
respond to efforts at conciliation, for by this time the
secession of South Carolina and five other states had
aroused them to demand drastic action by the government
to curb the slave power.

Sylvis at this time was unable to differentiate between
the ill-defined objectives of the Republican Party leaders,
which held out the hope of the destruction of slavery, and
the policies of compromise pursued by Democratic Party
leaders, which gave strength and comfort to the pro-slavery
forces. Addressing the workingmen in a letter published in
Mechanic’s Own, a Philadelphia labor paper, Sylvis showed
his distrust of the political leaders of the country, which
was later to form the basis for his decision to support the
formation of a labor party. He wrote:

“Under the leadership of political demagogues and
traitors scattered all over the land, North, South, East and
West, the country is going to the devil as fast as it can,
and unless the masses rise up in their might and teach their
representatives what to do, the good old ship will go to
pieces.” 13

Large sections of labor, whether Democratic or Repub-
lican by party affiliation, adhered to Lincoln and the prom-
ises held forth by the new Republican administration. This
was especially true of the foreign-born workers whose

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

25

aspirations for freedom had brought them to American
shores. The German workingmen who had emigrated to the
United States after the Revolution of 1848, and had
brought with them the democratic ideas generated by this
social upheaval, constituted a significant section of the
radical anti-slavery forces. They had aided in the forma-
tion of the Republican Party and had thrown their
strength into the election of its standard bearer. The
anti-slavery cause was greatly strengthened by the activi-
ties of the German-American Communist leaders, Joseph
Weydemeyer,* Adolph Douai,j- and others who had partici-
pated in the struggles abroad and who were close followers
of Karl Marx. Since the early ’fifties they had devoted their
efforts to organizing the German workers into trade unions
and agitating for abolition of slavery.

On Lincoln’s journey to Washington for his inaugura-
tion, he was met at his hotel in Cincinnati by a delegation
from the German Workingmen’s Society which numbered
two thousand members. Fred Obcrkleine, workingmen’s
leader, delivered an address to Lincoln in which he de-
clared :

* Weydemeyer was editor of a German labor periodical, Die None
Zeit, at the time of his death in 1866. He had previously edited Die
Revolution in 1852 and Die Reform in 1853 in which he printed for
the first time the famous Eighteenth Brumaire by Karl Marx. His
publication in 1853 of the Workingmen’s National Advocate was dedi-
cated to the purpose of organizing and uniting all workingmen into
a national trade union.

+ Douai established an Abolitionist newspaper in Texas, called the
San Antonio Zeitung. Compelled to leave Texas for this activity, he
moved to New York where he became among the first to popularize
Marxist teachings. He became editor of the Arbiter Union, a German
language newspaper in New York, and later editor of several Socialist
Labor Party publications.

26

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

“We, the German free workingmen of Cincinnati, avail
ourselves of this opportunity to assure you, our chosen
Chief Magistrate, of our sincere and heartfelt regard. You
earned our votes as the champion of free labor and free
homesteads. Our vanquished opponents have in recent
times made frequent use of the term workingmen and
workingmen’s meetings in order to create the impression
that the mass of workingmen were in favor of compromises
between the interests of free labor and slave labor. ... We
firmly adhere to the principle which directed our votes
in your favor.” 16

Expressing the hope that the President would be faith-
ful to the platform on which he was elected, he said: “If
to this end you should be in need of men, the German free
workingmen with others will rise as one man at your call
ready to risk their lives in the effort to maintain the vic-
tory already won by freedom over slavery.” Lincoln ex-
pressed concurrence with these sentiments and commented
that “the workingmen are the basis of all governments for
the plain reason that they are the most numerous. ” 17

As Sylvis observed the policies of the two parties, he
was steadily becoming “suspicious of the doctrines of both
as they were being interpreted by their recognized and
trusted exponents and chose between them only as between
two evils.” 18

In March, 1861, he wrote of the activity of the Com-
mittee of Thirty-Four, which continued to maintain corre-
spondence with its members and hold meetings, as follows :

“The business of this committee is to perfect and per-
petuate an organization among the industrial classes of
the city and state for the purpose of placing in positions

the civil war years

27

of public trust men of known honesty and ability; men
who know the real wants of the people and who will repre-
sent us according to our wishes ; men who have not made
politics a trade, men who for a consideration will not
become tools of rotten corporations and aristocratic
monopolies; men who will devote their time and energies
to the making of good laws and direct their administra-
tion in such a way as will best subserve the interests of the
whole people.” 1 ' The beginnings of Sylvis’ future interes
in independent political action by labor was here clearly

manifest. , ,

With the outbreak of the Civil War, the working people,

white and Negro, gave unstintingly to the war on e
battle front, and in the rear by the production of food,
clothing, and the materials of war. At the first call to arms,
workingmen enlisted and gave unqualified support to
the North in the struggle. The trade unions practically
ceased functioning. Many unions resolved to adjourn for
the duration and enrolled in the army in a body. The work-
ingmen formed the core of the Northern forces. Among
the active recruiting officers was Joseph Weydemeyer, who
enlisted and received a commission as a captain rom
border state, Missouri, which from the first had been a
storm center of civil strife between pro-slavery and anti
slavery forces. He recruited a regiment- of German-
American workers. Weydemeyer later rose to the rank

lieutenant-colonel. .

Sylvis promptly recruited a company but, on the pie
of his wife, did not himself join immediately, although he
was offered a commission as first lieutenant, evei a mon s
later, however, while working at his trade in Philadelphia,

28 WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

he organized a militia company of molders. When the in-
vasion of Pennsylvania was imminent and the mayor of

hiladelphia issued a call for troops, the molders’ com-
pany was the first to offer its services. Svlvis served as
orderly sergeant for a few months. Upon his release, he
returned to Philadelphia, where he found that the situa-
tion facing labor at home demanded immediate steps to
revive the trade unions to defend their interests.

The first year of the war was a period of intense hard-
ship for those who remained behind the lines. The country
had hardly recovered from the crisis of 1857 when it was
again plunged into a depression in 1801. Fear of war had
impeded industrial activity. Businesses were bankrupt and
m 1861, as the war approached, twice as many had closed
t leir doors as in the previous year. Banks crashed and
state bank notes which flooded the country were rapidly
depreciating in value. Unemployment was widespread and
at the same time great numbers of new immigrants were
increasing the labor supply.

With the first signs of industrial activity, stimulated by
the need for war materials, leaders like Sylvia and Jona-
than Fincher, who was secretary of the Machinists and
Blacksmiths Union, were determined to rebuild their trade
unions. Throughout the country, towards the end of 1862,
local unions, 'trade assemblies, and national organizations’
were beginning to appear. The miners organized a na-
tional association in 1861 and in the following year the
Sons of Vulcan, a union of iron puddlers, was revived. In
1863, the Brotherhood of the Foot Board, later known
as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, was or-
ganized.

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS 29

The Philadelphia local of the molders, the only
local in the trade which had survived the storm, had en-
gaged in a long and bitter strike throughout the first year
of the war to prevent the employers from destroying the
union. Sylvis, at first practically single-handed, resolved
to gather together the forces of the molders and reorganize
the national union.

The rapid turn of events called for this objective. As
the country became more deeply involved in war, new
issues presented themselves to challenge the workingmen.
Industry which had been insufficiently developed to meet
the needs of a war situation was being transformed. In
the temporary boom which the war had brought, new
processes and techniques had come into use, and with as-
tonishing speed the shift from workshop to factory was
taking place. There was emerging a highly mechanized
industrial system with large-scale production. Owners of
factories, railroads, mines, and communications were con-
solidating their control with unprecedented tempo. The
trend towards concentration of ownership was apparent
everywhere. Because the government was desperately seek-
ing to fulfill its war needs, it was willing to purchase at
any price. In the name of patriotism, commission men,
manufacturers, merchants, and contractors gouged the
government of fabulous sums in return for which they
supplied inferior materials and goods. A recent historian
describes the transactions of the period as follows :

“Aged, blind, spavined, and ringboned nags constituted
the vast bulk of a delivery of cavalry horses. For sugar the
government sometimes received in considerable part sand,
for coffee, rye or some worse substitute, for leather a

30 WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

paperlike substitute ; for muskets and pistols the refuse of
shops and of foreign armories and in certain cases even
condemned arms previously disposed of to the contractors
who resold them.” 20

A New Economic Power

Enormous wealth was accumulated by selling “shoddy”
clothing and blankets for the armed forces, a material
which looked like cloth but was a composition made of
“refuse stuff and sweepings of the shop.” Through such
unscrupulous dealings, an aristocracy of wealth emerged
to replace the old slavocracy.

As the war progressed a cry arose against persons in
high places who were using their offices to fleece the
government while millions were giving their lives on the
battlefields.

“Worse than traitors in arms are the men who, pre-
tending loyalty to the flag, feast and fatten on the mis-
fortunes of the nation,” 21 read a report of a special
committee appointed by Congress to investigate the con-
duct of the war.

There was more than ample cause for this indignation.
Thurlow Weed, an influential Republican, entrusted with
a diplomatic mission by the State Department, received
a 5 per cent commission on a contract he negotiated for
the War Department with a powder manufacturer. Secre-
tary of the Navy Welles gave his brother-in-law a com-
mission for buying ships for the Navy which netted the
latter $90,000 in five months. Secretary of War Cameron
figured in a scandal in which J. Pierpont Morgan de-

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

31

frauded the government. More than seven hundred Hall’s
carbines which had been originally sold as condemned
property by the government at $2 apiece, were repur-
chased for the government by the War Department’s
agent, John Stevens, for $15 each. They were again con-
demned and sold at $3.50. Morgan then advanced $17,-
486 to Stevens to repurchase the carbines, which had now
been slightly repaired, at $12.50 apiece and resell them
to the government at $22 each. This netted Morgan the
sum of $109,912. The carbines were still so defective that
they would shoot off the thumbs of soldiers using them.
The House of Representatives was therefore opposed to
paying Morgan. But he demanded that his claim be paid
and when questioned at a Congressional hearing he refused
to disclose the terms of the deal. This profitable transac-
tion helped to lay the foundation of the Morgan fortune. 22

General James Wilson wrote that “in tents, a lighter
cloth or a few’ inches off size ; in harness, split leather ; in
saddles, inferior materials and workmanship; in shoes,
paper soles; in clothes, shoddy; in mixed horse feed, chaff
and a large proportion of the cheaper grain; in hay,
straws and weeds ; in fuel, inferior grades of coal and wood,
and so on through the entire list nearly every article pre-
sented its chances for. . . dishonest profit.

“Every contractor had to be watched . . . and quarter-
masters and inspectors frequently stood in for a share
of the profits.” 2a At least 20 per cent and perhaps 25
per cent of government expenditures for war needs was
tainted with fraud, a special investigator of the War
Department reported.

32

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

The luxury and extravagance of the rich who were
untouched by the ravages of war, since they could be
released from service in the army by paying for substi-
tutes, was in marked contrast to the suffering and devoted
self-sacrifice of the people. The Copperhead Democrats
who abetted the Southern slave power by determined oppo-
sition to the war effort could, therefore, successfully stir
up the bloody anti-draft riots of July, 1803, among the
people of New York. They knew well how to exploit for
their own ends the deep indignation and resentment of the
people against the profiteers in patriotism.

To finance its purchases and meet the costs of war the
government undertook to float bond issues rather than to
resort to the policy of heavy taxation of the people as
proposed by the banks. The banks had refused to pay in
coin in December, 1861, and the country seemed headed
for a period of inflation which could only result in impov-
erishment of the masses. During 1862 and thereafter, the
government, through acts of Congress, issued a total of
six hundred million dollars in paper money or “green-
backs.” To encourage the sale of government bonds, inter-
est was made payable in coin, and bonds purchasable in
greenbacks were made redeemable in gold.* This set in
motion frenzied speculation as government bonds were
bought up with depreciating greenbacks by financiers and
speculators, and gold was at a premium.

* Thaddeus Stevens, Radical Republican leader, opposed this course
and urged that interest on new loans be paid in paper money. This
demand was later taken up by Sylvis and the money reformers who
saw a panacea for society in a change in the currency system.

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

33

The Republican Party in power soon made good its
promise to the manufacturers of a high tariff which pro-
tected American goods against foreign competition, but
this proved no safeguard to the workingmen against high
prices and low wages. It had finally adopted legislation
providing 160 acres of land per settler by the Homestead
Act of 1862, but lavish grants by the Federal government
and the states to speculators, to railroads and to other
corporations soon nullified this seemingly generous meas-
ure. No precautions had been taken to prevent land mo-
nopoly as the land reformers and labor and the farmers
had urgently demanded. Labor’s interests had not been
safeguarded. The best lands were already passing into
large holdings and were becoming inaccessible to the set-
tlers for whom they w'ere supposed to have been kept.
Less than two months following the passage of the Home-
stead Act, Congress authorized a grant of twenty-three
and a half million acres to private corporations ostensibly
to defray costs of railroad expansion but actually estab-
lishing a land monopoly and the basis for increased land
speculation. Ten years later nearly half the land area set
aside for actual settlers had been granted to corpora-
tions. 24 In the exploitation for private gain of the
abundant, rich natural resources which these lands pro-
vided lay the basis for the economic and political power
which the dominant class of merchants, land owners,
manufacturers, and financiers were soon to possess.

Small businessmen felt increasingly insecure, and as
mechanization increased in agriculture, the farmers, too,
felt the threat of competition from the new large-scale

34

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

farms. A clamor of indignation was heard against the
“money power” of Wall Street and against the land,
railroad, and other monopolies, which found increasing
response from these groups and other sections of the
middle class affected adversely by the changes in method
of production and the trend toward corporate control.
The decline of the purchasing power of the dollar was a
grievance of large sections of the population. Money re-
formers and land reformers who voiced middle class anti-
monopolist sentiment were soon propagandizing for
legislation to reform the currency system.* This they
offered as the permanent cure for the hardships con-
comitant with the new industrial developments. They
sought, as heretofore, to gain the support of the work-
ingmen for their program, and their influence tended to
divert labor from the main path of strengthening its eco-
nomic organizations and from coping with a rising capi-
talism through class action. Sylvis, too, was eventually
to yield to this influence.

Labor faced a new economic power which was frus-
trating its cherished hopes. In spite of intense cut-throat
competition, employers were finding a common ground of
unity against the workingmen and were seeking to take
advantage of their organizational weakness and their lim-

* The currency reformers took over the monetary ideas of Edward
Kellogg, an American reformer of the 1840’s, known as the “father
of Greenbackism.” With some modifications these views became the
doctrines of the so-called labor reformers and were endorsed in the
1867 convention of the National Labor Union. They contained many
points of similarity with the views of Proudhon, contemporary French
social reformer.

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS 35

ited experience to impose more repressive measures upon
them.*

As the needs of war gave a spurt to industry and trade,
employment increased but wages were correspondingly re-
duced as paper money depreciated and prices for food,
clothing, and rent rose with unprecedented speed. Wage
increases which came in the wake of trade union struggle
could hardly keep abreast of price rises. Over the period
of the war, prices doubled and workingmen were compelled
to economize, lower their living standards, and make other
sacrifices. By 1864, trade magazines were admitting that
consumption of staple products by the masses of the
people, such as coffee and sugar, had declined to the point
where trade was almost stagnant. 25

Revival of the Iron Molders International Union

In this social situation, Sylvis, who now recognized that
the interests of capital and labor were in conflict, deter-
mined to re-establish the national molders union to protect

* Anthony Trollope, English novelist, on a visit to America during
the Civil War remarked: “There is, I think, no taskmaster over free
labor so exacting as an American. He knows nothing of hours and
seems to have that idea of a man which a lady has of a horse. ... I had
fancied that an American citizen would not submit to be driven, that
the spirit of the country, if not the spirit of the individual, would
have made it impossible. . . . But I found that such driving did exist.
• . . But there is worse even than this. . . . The complaint that wages are
held back and not even ultimately paid is very common. . . . The men
over them are new as masters, masters who are rough themselves, who
have themselves been roughly driven” ... (Anthony Trollope, North
America, Visit During the Civil War [1861], p. 136, Philadelphia,
1862.)

36

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

the economic interests of the men of his craft. This in-
volved the reorganization of the local unions and the
reconstitution of the national body which had ceased to
function. Through the initiative of Sylvis, the scattered
union members from different parts of the country met at
a national convention in January, 1863, in Pittsburgh.
The convention, attended by twenty delegates from four-
teen locals, as its first act elected Sylvis as national
president, a position which he retained until his death in
1869.

Lndcr Sylvis’ leadership, the convention proceeded to
revise the constitution to suit the needs of the new' situ-
ation. The national union was reshaped into a centralized
organization with greater and more clearly defined powers
than heretofore, and it now took the name, Iron Holders
International Union. The authority of the national body
was established as the "supreme head” with the subordi-
nate local unions governed by it. Local union constitutions,
which had varied widely and were often in conflict, were
now' to conform to that of the national union and by-laws
were to be framed by local unions subject to approval of
the national union. This marked an advance over the pre-
vious loosely organized federation of autonomous local
unions. To establish the union on a sound basis, Sylvis
aided in devising a system of finances to include annual
membership dues and funds from sale of union cards and
charters.

His wisdom in recognizing the importance of stable or-
ganization led him to conclude that the national union
w'ould be limited in its functions and could never properly

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS 37

administer the union’s affairs nor serve the interests of
the membership unless a national treasury was established
with a special strike fund by means of compulsory per
capita taxation. He saw that dependable financial re-
sources were a guarantee of the ability of the national
union to combat the employers’ associations more effec-
tively and created the possibility for victory in strikes.
Although he was already deeply engrossed in larger social
issues, he was equally far-sighted about the practical de-
tails of organization which would insure the future sta-
bility and effectiveness of the organization.

This was unprecedented in the experience of American
trade unions for no union had previously concerned itself
with setting up a tightly knit, carefully planned national
organization with a system of finances. Sylvis directed
every detail of organization with a clarity and purpose
that has rightly entitled him to be designated as America’s
first labor organizer.

After the convention, Sylvis gave up w'ork at his trade
and devoted himself exclusively to the building of the na-
tional union, with no promise of paj^ and with consequent
severe hardship for him and his family.

Having received "flattering responses” from a number
of locals regarding a proposal of the National Union to
send out an organizer, Sylvis persuaded the Philadelphia
local to advance him $100 for organizing purposes and
he then set forth on a “tour of experiment.” He acknowl-
edged that he had "no very clear perceptions of the extent
of the task ... or of the means by which it was to be ac-
complished.” 20 No funds were yet available and it had

38

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

been left optional with the locals as to whether they would
raise the funds for the trip.

Within a year Sylvis had organized eighteen new unions,
reorganized sixteen locals which had entirely disappeared
after 1861, and had placed twelve other old locals on a
firmer basis. To accomplish this feat, he traveled ten
thousand miles, through every section of the country and
in Canada. When he was unable to raise funds he tramped
from place to place, begging rides when he had insufficient
funds to pay for them. It is said that “he wore clothes
until they became quite threadbare and he could wear them
no longer . . . the shawl he wore to the day of his death . . .
was filled with little holes burned there by the splashing
of molten iron from the ladles of moldcrs in strange cities,
whom he was beseeching to organize.” 27 Of the total sum
of $899 which he collected on his tour during the year, he
sent $279 to his family, which was their only income.

When he was re-elected president at the Buffalo con-
vention in 1864, he was voted an annual salary of $600
which was increased at subsequent conventions to a maxi-
mum of $1,600. The union grew steadily and the member-
ship increased from 2,000 in fifteen local unions in 1863,
representing eight states, to 6,000 in 54 locals 1 rom eight-
een states, the District of Columbia, and Canada in 1865.
From a total income of $1,600 in 1863, the union’s
revenues had risen to $20,000 in 1865. “Out of all the
charters issued since the commencement of my adminis-
tration two years ago,” Sylvis reported, “hut one has
been returned; showing a degree of prosperity and sta-
bility unequalled in the history of any similar organiza-
tion on the continent.” His confidence in the future of

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

39

the Iron Moldcrs International Union was emphatic at
this convention : “The union once shaken to its very center,
with column after column falling in ruins around us, has
been relieved of surrounding dangers.” By the time of
his death in 1869 the union reported a membership em-
bracing 90 per cent of the moldcrs and totaled ten thou-
sand.

Through his experiences in the trade unions and his
independent study, Sylvis had by this time concluded that
labor must assume its place in society as a basic force
in the creation of a true democracy. Implicit in his
thoughts was his faith in the workingman and the need
for developing the pride and confidence of labor in its own
dignity. He saw the need to unite labor for its economic
interests but he also visualized how labor could utilize its
power as an articulate force in the life of the nation. He
declared that “Labor is the great fountain from which
they [governments] draw all support and acquire a vital
power. Upon labor is founded all enterprise, progress and
the perfection of everything that renders a nation great
and prosperous.” 29

Sylvis argued forcefully against the prevailing conten-
tions that there was an identity of interest between capital
and labor. He declared to the contrary that there were
basic antagonisms. His unequivocal presentation of his
position deserves quotation at length as a vital document
of American labor history :

“The fact that capital denies to labor the right to regu-
late its own affairs, would take from the workingman the
right to place a valuation upon his own labor, destroys at
once the theory of an identity of interests ; if as is held

40

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

by them, the interests of the two are identical, and their
positions and relations mutual, there would be no inter-
ference whatever with one another ; the workingman would
be left free to place his own price upon his labor as capi-
talists are to say what interest or profits they shall have
upon money invested. . . . Capitalists employ labor for the
amount of profit realized and workingmen labor for the
amount of wages received. . . . This is the only relation
existing between them; they arc two distinct elements, or
rather two distinct classes, with interests as widely sepa-
rated as the poles. We find capitalists ever watchful of
their interests — ever ready to make everything bend to
their desires. Then why should not laborers be equally
watchful of their interests — equally ready to take advan-
tage of every circumstance to secure good wages and
social elevation? . . .

“If workingmen and capitalists are equal co-partners,
composing one vast firm by which the industry of the
world is carried on and controlled, why do they not share
equally in the profits? Why does capital take to itself the
whole loaf, while labor is left to gather up the crumbs?
Why does capital roll in luxury and wealth, while labor
is left to eke out a miserable existence in poverty and
want? Are these the evidences of an identity of interests,
of mutual relations, of equal partnership? No sir. On the
contrary they are evidences of an antagonism. This an-
tagonism is the general origin of all ‘strikes.’ Labor has
always the same complaints to make, and capital always
the same oppressive rules to make and powers to employ.
Were it not for this antagonism, labor would often escape
the penalty of much misery and moral degradation, and

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

41

capital the disgrace and ruin consequent upon such dan-
gerous collisions. There is not only a never-ending conflict
between the two classes, but capital is in all cases the
aggressor. Labor is always found on the defensive, be-
cause :

“Capital enjoys individual power and in the exercise of
that is given to encroach upon the rights and privileges
of labor.

“Labor is individually weak and only becomes powerful
when banded together for self-defence

“Capital knows no other commercial principle than
that . . . which says ‘buy in the cheapest market and sell
in the dearest* but which if applied to labor means ‘keep
down the price of labor and starve the workingmen.’ . . .
It must follow from the admission of these premises, that
the interests of employer and employee are not identical.
That, on the one side, employers are interested because
of profits to keep down the price of labor while on the
other side the employees are justified, on account of self-
interest, to keep up wages. Thus labor and capital are
antagonistic. . . .

“If there is mutuality and oneness of feeling, I ask, sir,
what means this universal uprising of the workingmen of
this continent who are rushing together as with the power
of the whirlwind, towards one common center — a union of
Workingmen?” 20

Profound discontent with administration policies was
apparent everywhere among the people despite their ex-
pressed loyalty to the Northern cause in the Civil War.
Resentment, shown by strikes, protest meetings, and peti-
tions, was directed against the government policy of

42

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

benefiting employers while ignoring labor’s needs and espe-
cially against the subsidies, land grants, and franchises
which were laying the basis for the growth of powerful
monopolies.* Workingmen saw in the importation of con-
tract labor, legalized by an Act of Congress in 1864, collu-
sion to counteract the effect of trade union organization^
Added threats to wage standards presented themselves in
the increasing numbers of women and Negroes who were
entering the labor market and were being employed at
lower wages. Rapidly soaring prices made wage increases
imperative. Such a situation could only be met by con-
certed action through organization. Strikes were being
waged throughout the country and were being followed by
trade union organization. Carl Sandburg defines the char-
acter of this movement :

“As if by instinct and with no tradition nor practice
for guidance, the working class began using the weapon
termed the strike. The very word ‘strike’ was so novel that
some newspapers put it in quotes as though it were slang
or colloquial, not yet fully accepted in good language.” 81

Throughout the years 1863 and 1864 more strikes oc-
curred than had yet been seen in all the previous years in

* In Illinois large mass meetings of the people prevented the grant-
ing of a francliise for 99 years to a Chicago street car line. (See E. D.
Fite, Industrial Conditions in the North During the Civil War, p. 180,
New York, 1910.)

+ The St. Louis local of the Molders Union struck in 1864 to pre-
vent an employer from using workingmen imported from Prussia to
break down union wage rates. The latter who were met on arrival by
union men agreed to join the strikers after learning of the situation
and were supported by funds from the International Union for sev-
eral months. Protests from the labor movement finally succeeded in
having the contract labor law rescinded at the end of the decade.

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

43

American history. The Spring-field Republican of March
26, 1863, remarked that “the workmen of almost every
branch of trade have had their strikes within the last few
months. ... In almost every instance the demands of the
employed have been acceded to. The strikes which have all
been conducted very quietly . . . have led to the formation
of numerous leagues or unions.”

The Right to Strike

As the strike movement progressed everywhere during
the Civil War, the employers developed new methods to
destroy workingmen’s organizations and to break strikes.
National associations to combat labor were being or-
ganized from scattered local employers’ groups. Certifi-
cates of honorable discharge were demanded before a man
was hired. Effective blacklists were established. Bills were
introduced in New York and Massachusetts designed to
make union organization illegal by imposing drastic penal-
ties against any attempts to organize, designating them as
acts of “intimidation.” Both bills failed of passage as a
result of aggressive demonstrations and outraged protests
by the workingmen. Responding to pressure of the em-
ployers, army leaders forbade strikes in arms plants and
placed strike leaders under military arrest. General Order
No. 65, issued by Major General William Rosecrans in
April, 1864, from the St. Louis headquarters in Missouri,
expressly forbade any attempts to organize men engaged
in the production of war materials and provided military
protection for scabs, and a blacklist for those who en-
gaged in organizing work. This was followed by a similar

44 WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

order from General Burbridge of Louisville headquarters.

Printers in St. Louis, when faced with soldiers sent by
General Rosecrans to break their strike, appealed to Presi-
dent Lincoln for assistance. They recalled to him his fa-
mous utterance in reference to a shoe workers’ strike in
Lynn, Massachusetts, in which he said, ‘‘Thank God, we
have a system where there can be a strike.” Lincoln is
said to have sent word that “servants of the Federal
government should not interfere with the legitimate de-
mands of labor.” The strike-breaking soldiers were then
withdrawn.

Generally, however, Lincoln chose to be silent on these
struggles and on the actions of his generals, for his first
concern was for the uninterrupted and successful conduct
of the war. It is known that in one instance at least he
suggested to army and navy heads that they settle a ship-
yard’s strike by bargaining with labor. 32

Sylvis unhesitatingly condemned the army’s action in
opposing organization and breaking strikes. He criticized
especially the arrest and imprisonment without trial of
four of the workers of the R. P. Parrott Gun Works in
New' York who struck for wage increases. Sylvis denounced
sharply the procedure in w'hich three of the strikers
“confined in a prison for no ollence other than exercising
their right to refuse to work at a less price than they
were pleased to ask — a right belonging to every American
citizen — were not permitted to return to their homes, w r ere
driven from their abiding places, exiled in a free land,
their families forced from the town, forced to move beyond
the limit of this tyrant’s domain whose rule is as absolute

as that of the Emperor of all the Russias.” 33

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

45

There wxre other instances in which the army was used
against strikers who sought to improve their wages to
meet rising prices at a time when profiteers, in the name
of patriotism, were exploiting the government and the
people. Striking machinists and tailors were forced back
to work at the point of a bayonet in St. Louis and their
strikes were broken by arrests of several members. General
Thomas in Tennessee had arrested tw T o hundred striking
mechanics and “deported” them north of the Ohio River.
When the engineers on the Reading Railroad struck, the
United States military manned the roads. The Miners’
Association was broken up by government interference in
the Eastern coalfields. The back pay of m older s who struck
for wage advances in the Brooklyn Navy Nard was con-
fiscated. Soldiers stood guard over strikebreakers during
a strike of New York dockworkers.

Sylvis, loyal to the government in the Civil War, placed
responsibility not upon the government policy at Wash-
ington but on the “petty tyrants clothed in a little brief
authority [who] have been retained in the positions they
have disgraced.” The assaults upon labor he attributed to
men in political office, who “for a price made themselves
the willing instruments of a few pampered menials who
sought to steal away the rights of the people.” He also
held as responsible employers whose relations to labor he
characterized as that of “master and slave and totally at
variance with the spirit of the institutions of a i ree people.
He pointed with pride to the loyalty and heroic sacrifice
of the workingmen in the Civil War whom he character-
ized as the “bone and muscle of the nation, the very pillars
of our temple of liberty.”

46

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

“While armed treason and rebellion threatened our in-
stitutions with destruction, while the proud and opulent
of the land were plotting the downfall of our government
the toiling millions stood like a wall of adamant between
. . . the country and all its foes.” 34

For this reason he considered the outrages practiced
against the people the more reprehensible and stood out
courageously against those who charged him with bringing
about a conflict between labor and capital.

“A collision between capital and labor already exists,”
he wrote in 1865. “At present it is only a clashing of
interests, a social revolution, a war of classes with such
weapons as fair argument, honesty of purpose, a true re-
gard for the best interests of society. ... If the doctrines
and principles promulgated and taught by the advocates
of union among workingmen and the efforts of those en-
gaged in this movement to secure to labor the fruit of its
toil, and the full enjoyment of all the blessings of an en-
lightened civilization, will produce such collision, let it
come.” 80

He warned those whom he believed were trying to
frighten labor into submission that “we are terribly in
earnest and that sooner than turn back from the point
we have reached and the course we have marked out, we
will accept the fearful issue. To us this question is some-
thing more, something dearer, than constitutional ties or
church relations or country itself and the sooner those who
are . . . attempting to destroy our organizations come to
understand our true feelings, and what we mean, the better
it will be for all concerned.” 30

That the struggles of labor might even take on the pro-

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

47

portions of a mass revolt was apparent to Sylvis who
spoke with intense class feeling about the social upheavals
abroad and their meaning to American labor. If the rights
of the working people continued to be trampled under foot,
he predicted, they might resort to revolutionary action to
rid themselves of their domestic traitors just as the anger
of the people abroad had finally burst forth into an “irre-
sistible explosion.”

“In ordinary times,” he declared, “a collision would
have been inevitable; nothing but the patient patriotism
of the people and their desire in no way to embarrass the
government prevented it. Rut ‘there is a point where for-
bearance ceases to be a virtue’ — that point may be
reached.” 37

In organization of the workers, Sylvis saw the immediate
hope of the working people and the realization of their
aspirations. “The capitalists are denying us the right to
organize,” he declared eloquently, “out of fear of their
own loss of power.

“Capitalists and the professional robbers of the hard
earnings of the toiling millions, political and professional
demagogues and other drones upon society, have been so
long used to lording it over the poor man; so long used
to molding us in their own fashion and making of us the
stepping stones to their wealth, ease and elevation that
any effort by us to shake off this power that has been
‘grinding us to the dust of misery’ threatening . . . not only
ourselves but our posterity for all time to come is looked
upon by them as dangerous to the best interests of society.
They see in this great formation the ultimate destruction
of their power over the people; they see the transparent

48

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

sophistry fabricated by them to deceive the masses pene-
trated, and that unless the movement can be crushed in
its infancy, their power will have departed. This explains
the holy horror and the flow of pious rhetoric with which
they of late cajole the ‘dear people’ and cry out against
the immoral tendencies of trade-unions. I believe that all
men are ‘endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights’ among which is the divine right to labor, the right
to an interest in the soil, the right to free homes, the right
to limit the hours of toil to suit our physical capacities,
the right to place a valuation upon our own labor propor-
tionate to our social and corporeal wants, the right to the
first social position in the land, the right to a voice in the
councils of the nation, the right to control and direct leg-
islation for the good of the majority, the right to compel
the drones of society to seek useful employment . . . and the
right to adopt whatever means we please within the pale
of reason and law to secure these rights.” 38

Sylvis urged trade union organization as the primary
way to achieve a fuller and richer life for the working-
men, the first step towards competence and independence.
He believed that labor was “not sufficiently educated to
properly understand the principles of social and political
science and too apt to listen to the teachings of those
whose interest it is to foster prejudice” because long hours
and low wages provided little opportunity for them to
read, study and reflect. “We want more time and more
money,” he declared, “fewer hours of toil and more wages
for what we do. These wants we will supply and these
evils we will remedy through the instrumentality of our
organizations.” 33

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS 49

Pointing with pride to the gains made by labor through
trade union organization he said:

“The benefits secured by our union aside from an in-
crease in wages arc beyond calculation. A strong desire
for mental cultivation has infused itself throughout the
entire body. Schools, libraries, reading and lecture rooms
and other institutions for the diffusion of useful knowledge
are springing up among us ... a feeling of brotherhood
everywhere exists ; an interest in each other’s welfare has
broken down to a vast extent that selfishness that used to
exist among us ; a feeling of manly independence has taken
the place of that cringing and crawling spirit that used to
make us the scorn of honest men.” 40

The Labor Press

To the labor leaders of this period, an independent
labor press had become indispensable. The press of even
the most progressive sections of the middle class had be-
come increasingly hostile to labor’s right to organize and
to strike, and to the demands put forward by the working-
men.* Sylvis urged support for Fincher’s Trades’ Review ,
a general labor newspaper which appeared in 1863 under
the editorship of Jonathan Fincher with whom he was
then working closely in union organization. He deplored

* In labor disputes, for example, the Nation, which formerly
sought labor as an ally in the Abolitionist struggle, was now consist-
ently on the side of capital. It opposed the eight-hour day move-
ment, denied labor’s right to negotiate wage scales; it urged profit-
sharing and co-operatives as a means of harmonizing the growing
class conflict.

50

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

the lack of support for the paper by the machinists and
by other unions and urged the molders to circulate and
subscribe to it. Warning that even labor papers might
come under the domination of labor’s enemies, if not ade-
quately supported and controlled by labor, he said : “It is
depressing to our cause when newspapers professing to be
labor organs lend themselves to either one of the political

parties ” He urged the workingmen to free these papers

of the temptation to seek support elsewhere:

“Keep them distinct and sanction no entangling alliances
calculated to awaken distrust and suspicion. We must
hold our cause spotless and pure . . . and those who at-
tempt to carry water on both shoulders, that is, to serve
two masters, cannot bring essential aid to either. He that
is not for us is against us and we want no partial advo-
cates of the labor movement, no half-way support.” 41

An independent labor press he considered absolutely in-
dispensable to the success of the labor movement.

“If that paper [ Fincher's Trades' Review ] is allowed to
fail,” he wrote, “we do not deserve to succeed. It ever
has been and is now a terror to the aristocracy. Let it fail
and one universal howl will go up from one end of the
continent to the other.” 42

He wanted a similar medium of education and agitation
for the molders’ union and had proposed as early as 1860
that a union journal be published. When he was elected
president of the National Union, one of his first acts was
to obtain consent of the membership for a monthly publi-
cation. The Molders International Union thus became the
first national union to issue its own journal. Other trade

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS 51

unions soon followed this example.* In 1866 it was re-
ported that 54,000 copies of the Holders' Journal had
circulated throughout the country from the time of its
inception. Of the influence of the labor press on public
opinion, Sylvis said: “Not until their advent did we make
the slightest advance towards equalizing wages with the
cost of living nor would our best efforts to establish the
eight-hour law or to accomplish any other reform have
availed us anything without their aid.”

When Sylvis attempted, however, to broaden the scope
of the Holders' Journal to that of a labor newspaper, he
was unable to break down the narrow viewpoint of his
fellow members who wanted a journal devoted exclusively
to the interests of the molders. Sylvis edited the journal
until 1868, when, due to opposition among the molders, he
discontinued it. In 1868, when Sylvis’ interests had ex-
tended into fields beyond the more immediate trade union
questions, he became co-editor of the Workingmen's
Advocate with A. C. Cameron, a printer. This weekly
newspaper which had started publication in Chicago in
1866 was strongly anti-monopolist in sentiment, sup-
ported currency reforms and the eight-hour movement.
Sylvis wrote editorials and articles for the paper, en-
couraged its circulation and used it as an agency of
propaganda for trade union organization and for re-
forms. The Workingmen's Advocate became the official
organ of the National Labor Union in 1868.

* The combined labor press bad an estimated annual circulation of
twenty thousand during the Civil War.

III. THE EMERGENCE OF THE
NATIONAL LABOR UNION

With the termination of the war in 1865, the return
oi about two million soldiers to peace time pursuits and
the cessation of demands by the government for war needs
brought a new crisis and new problems for labor. Sylvis
records that “there was a prostration of our trade un-
paralleled within the recollection of the oldest among us.”
The war had closed with prices advanced 100 per cent
over the 1860 level, while wage increases had averaged
only 50 per cent. The molders, in a somewhat more favor-
able position than other workers, had reported a wage in-
crease of 56 per cent over 1860 at the 1866 convention. The
International Union was now firmly established with 111
locals in 22 states and over 7,000 members. Attempts
by the employers during the spring of 1865 to provoke a
general strike had been successfully checked. Sylvis noted
that special precautions had to be taken to prevent such
a move and that only a few strikes were authorized by the
national union.- Most of the strikes were successful in
resisting wage reductions and in making further advances
and Sylvis could report that “our ship rode through the
storm in safety.”

* In 1863, at the suggestion of Sylvis, the constitution of the
union had been revised to require local unions to present a bill of
grievances before a strike could be sanctioned. Authorization of
strikes was given and assessments were levied only after a majority

° the IocaJs had approved. Further restrictions on strikes were
imposed in 1865.

52

THE NATIONAL LABOR UNION 53

But the years of post-war depression and unemploy-
ment, 1866-1867, bore heavily on the molders. The union
was in grave danger of annihilation by a concerted drive
of foundry employers who had finally joined forces on a
national scale. Wage cuts were declared simultaneously in
most of the important centers and workingmen were locked
out when they refused to accept them. The great lock-out
of 1866 which spread from Albany and Troy westward
involved ten local unions, and disaster was averted only
when the employers’ solid front was broken. A strike in
Pittsburgh, involving five thousand men, continued for an
entire year. That a formidable but unsuccessful attempt
to destroy the union had been made was indicated by
Sylvis when he said :

“They [the employers] confidently expected that such
an array of business talent and vast wealth together with
a flourishing of trumpets and the aid of almost the entire
newspaper press of the country would so alarm us that
the Molders International Union would disappear like mist
before the rising sun. But unlike the Iron Founders Asso-
ciation the members of the International Molders Union
were not to be bought with gold, scared by a loud noise
nor whipped with the traces of falsehood and wilful mis-
representations of the most corrupt newspapers on the
face of the earth.” 43

The workingmen had fought with some success to main-
tain their right to organize and through their unions had
won increases in wages to meet sharply rising prices.
Now that the demobilized soldiers and the Negro freedmen
were seeking jobs, labor became more insistent in its de-

mands for the eight-hour day. Karl Marx, writing from

54

WILLIAM II. SYLVIS
England as a close observer of American events and a
potent influence over British working class sentiment in
favor of the North during the Civil War, noted that agi-
tation for the eight-hour day was the “first fruit of the
Civil War.”

“In the United States of America,” he wrote, “any sort
of independent labor movement was paralyzed so long as
slavery disfigured a part of the Republic. Labor with a
white skin cannot emancipate itself where labor with
a black skin is branded. But out of the death of slavery a
new and vigorous life sprang. The first fruit of the Civil
W ar was an agitation for the eight-hour day — a move-
ment which ran with express speed from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, from New England to California.” 44

The Eight-Hour Movement

As early as 1860, the national conventions of the Ma-
chinists and Blacksmiths Union and the Molders Union
had initiated the eight-hour demand. With funds granted
by the machinists and blacksmiths and the Boston Trades
Assembly in 1863, and through the efforts of Ira Steward,*
a Boston machinist, state and local eight-hour day leagues

* Frederick Sorge, Socialist leader and close follower of Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels, remarks of Ira Steward that “it is al-
most exclusively due to his work that the representatives of Massa-
chusetts in the highest councils of the nation, such as Charles Sumner,
Henry V ilson, and General Bank, supported the workers’ demands for
a number of years.” (Frederick Sorge, “Die Arbeiterbewegung in
den Vercinigten Staaten” Neue Zeit, Vol. IX, No. 39, 1890-91, p.
398.)

THE NATIONAL LABOR UNION 55

were organized in many sections of the country to agitate
for legislative protection against long hours of work.
Steward together with Wendell Phillips, a close co-worker,
established the Labor Reform Association in Boston which
became a center of eight-hour agitation. Eight-hour
leagues with a membership from the working and middle
classes were formed as far west as San Francisco and
local unions in many places took up the struggle for an
eight-hour day in their strike demands.

Agitation for the eight-hour day aroused the ire of
labor’s erstwhile allies in the anti-slavery and land reform
movements. The men who had formerly appealed for la-
bor’s support were now impatient with the workingmen’s
demands and were backing the interests of the rising class
of entrepreneurs and financiers. While they conceded the
need for more leisure for labor, they argued that in the
long run it would mean diminished production, less earn-
ings and therefore less wealth for all. They proposed in-
stead that labor turn its attention to arbitrating its
differences with capital and seek its objectives through
profit-sharing and co-operation, by legislative changes in
the monetary system, and by protection of the public
domain. 48 Abolitionists like Wendell Phillips, who saw the
need for class action through strong trade unions, were
exceptional.

As a convinced supporter of the eight-hour day move-
ment, Sylvis told the molders in convention in 1864 that
workingmen were justified in their efforts to bring about
a shorter wor kin g day. He contended that “the ignorance
of the masses was the direct and inevitable result of over-
work” and concluded that “to diminish the hours of toil is

56

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

to increase the value of labor, is to multiply the number of
laborers, is to add to the moral dignity and religious spirit
of the times, is to change for the better the social state
and the character of the people, and this will be to
strengthen the patriotism, the commercial credit, the po-
litical institutions of the country.” 4fi

At tins time he urged an educational campaign for the
reduction of the working day. In the following year he
proposed to the molders that the first step towards the
ultimate establishment of the eight-hour system was to
refuse to report for work before 7.00 a.m. The eight-hour
day demand he considered as labor’s right to benefit from
increased production and the material gains concomitant
with the extensive use of machinery. The worker, he de-
clared, runs all the risks of life, limb and health from the
use of machinery, which adds to wealth, while his wages
remain the same and he works as hard and as long. “The
worker alone,” he wrote, “is made to suffer a social mar-
tyrdom to benefit every class of society save that in which
he moves.” 47

Efforts at Federation

The eight-hour question was soon to be the slogan
around which the labor forces were to rally and unite their
strength. From the time when Sylvis had sought to unite
workingmen on a national scale in an effort to avert war
he had recognized that labor’s future rested on its ability
to act as a decisive political force in national affairs. This
e rea lzed could not be achieved without first organizing
a or nationally in every branch of industry. Although he

THE NATIONAL LABOR UNION 57

had gained his knowledge of trade unionism principally
from his experiences in pioneering in the leadership of a
craft union, he did not reflect the narrow craft viewpoints
of many of the skilled workers of his day. This is noted in
the characterization of him in the official weekly periodical
of the Woman’s Suffrage Association, The Revolution,
edited by Susan B. Anthony, leader of the woman’s rights
movement. Sylvis is described as a “prominent leader of
the labor reform movement which already counts hun-
dreds of local associations . . . and which will ere long
shape the policy of the nation.” Praising Sylvis’ knowl-
edge of “the labor reform question” and the conditions
of the working class, the paper comments: ,

“He saw in this country this difference; a government
of the people of whom the laboring classes constitute the
greater and most important part and according to the
theory of government should be the controlling element.
Here, then, the laboring classes have a duty to perform
somewhat different. It is theirs to 'preserve what the labor-
ing classes of Europe may vainly struggle for years,
against kings and nobles and standing armies, to gain. . . .
Himself a workingman, one of the people, as he learned
from history the universal tendency of all centralized gov-
ernment to class legislation and unequal taxation, taken
from the laboring many to enrich the non-producing few,
naturally adopted the Jeffersonian doctrine of a strict con-
struction of the Constitution. . . .” 48

Sylvis’ recognition of the power of trade union organ-
ization led him to encourage the formation of central
trade bodies or trades assemblies and of new national
unions, and finally to initiate a national federation of all

58

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

trades and workingmen’s organizations for the united ac-
tion of labor. He was one of the active organizers, and,
together with Fincher, served as a trustee of the Philadel-
phia Trades Assembly which was established in 1864 and
which soon became the strongest trades assembly in the
country. When a movement was on foot to organize a
national trades assembly during the same year, he en-
dorsed it before the molders’ convention as well worthy of
consideration and appointed a committee of three to aid
in its formation. This initial effort by the Louisville cen-
tral body to unite the trades assemblies into a national
body brought together twelve delegates from eight trade
assemblies in September, 1864, in Louisville. The Interna-
tional Industrial Assembly of North America was formed
on that occasion and voiced a demand for the eight-hour
day and for increased organization. The International
Assembly did not reconvene again, for lack of support.
While favoring united action, Sylvis did not attend the
meeting nor were there any representatives present from
the Philadelphia Trades Assembly. The national unions
were yet too weak, too few, and too preoccupied with their
own struggles for survival to take any active part in the
new development. This national body of central trades was
soon to be replaced by the National Labor Union, based
on representation and leadership from the national trade
unions, a form better suited to the needs and interests of
the new, growing national organizations. At different times
Sylvis had had consultations and considerable correspond-
ence with other prominent trade unionists and reformers on
the subject of organizing a national federation. In 1866 the
national federation was finally to be achieved with the

THE NATIONAL LABOR UNION 59

foremost issue of the time, the eight-hour day as its basic

demand. .

In February, 1866, along with William Harding, presi-
dent of the International Coachmakers Union, Sylvis
planned the preliminaries of the first congress of the Na-
tional Labor Union. Among the initiators of the first
congress there was no agreement as to the amount of
power or the nature of the control that it would be wise
or safe to rest in the proposed organization. There was
consensus, however, on the issue of the eight-hour day
and a section of the call to the congress read : ?

“The agitation of the question of eight hours as a day s
labor has assumed an importance requiring concerted and
harmonious action upon all matters appertaining to the
inauguration of labor reforms. It is essential that a Na-
tional Congress be held to form a basis upon which we
may harmoniously and concertedly move in its prosecu-
tion.”

The First Congress

Sylvis was unable to be present at the congress when
it met on August 20, 1866, in Baltimore, due to illness,
but he watched its proceedings with deep interest. 1 e
congress was attended by seventy-seven delegates from
thirteen states, most of whom came from the local unions
where the strength of the labor movement still lay. Only
two national unions, the coachmakers’ union and the
curriers’ union, were officially recorded as sending dele-
gates, but indicative of the leadership of the new national
unions in a federation of labor is the fact that ten delc-

60

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

gates were officers of national unions.* A flag to welcome
the delegates, flown outside the meeting hall, hailed the
solidarity of labor with the words, “Welcome to the Sons
of Toil, from the North, South, East, and West.”

The eight-hour day issue occupied by far the greater
part of the deliberations of the first congress of the Na-
tional Labor Union. Out of the debate over this issue arose
the question of undertaking independent political action
and the repudiation of the two old parties. Delegate
Edward Schlegel f of the German Workingmen’s Associa-
tion of Chicago aroused the congress with a vigorous
speech calling for the immediate formation of a new party
of labor:

“ A new party of the people,” he declared, “must be in
the minority when it first comes into action. But what
of that? Time and perseverance will give us victory; and

* The national unions were still small in number and strategically
m a weak position. The following were organized during the decade
of the ’sixties: American Miners’ Ass’n., 1861; Sons of Vulcan, 1862-
Locomotive Engineers, 1863; Cigar Makers, Ship Carpenters, Plas-
terers, and Curriers, 1864; Carpenters, Bricklayers, Painters, Tailors,
Heaters, Coachmakers, I860; Silk and Fur Hat Finishers, 1866;
Spinners, 1867; Knights of St. Crispin (shoeworkers), 1868; Rail-
road Conductors, Wool Hat Finishers, Daughters of St. Crispin,
and Morocco Dressers, 1869. These were in addition to the four
International Unions organized in the ’fifties which revived after the
first years of the Civil War: the Blacksmiths and Machinists, the
Moklei-S, the Typographical Union and the Hat Finishers.

+ Schlegel is sometimes referred to as Schlegcr. Sorge points out
that lie was influenced by Joseph Weydemeyer and Herman Myer,
-r y American Marxists. The German Workingmen’s Association
o Chicago which Schlegel represented became part of the Ameri-
can section of the International Workingmen’s Association. (Fred-
erick Sorge, op. cit., pp. 439-40.)

THE NATIONAL LABOR UNION 61

if we are not willing to sacrifice time and employ perse-
verance, we are not deserving of victory. It is useless to
hold conventions, if we fear so greatly to touch the preju-
dices of others. A new labor party must be formed com-
posed of the elements of American labor. . . . The Free Soil
Part} 7 originated with a few thousand voters ; but if it had
not been formed, Lincoln would never have been elected
President of the United States.” 19

After vigorous debate during which there was consid-
erable opposition expressed by those who regarded politics
as outside the legitimate field of trade union activity, the
congress finally resolved that “the first and grand desid-
eratum of the hour is the adoption of a law whereby eight
hours shall constitute a legal day’s work in every state of
the American Union and we, the representatives of the
workingmen of America in congress assembled, recommend
that steps be taken to form the same [a national labor
party] which shall be put in operation as soon as pos-
sible.” 50 No specific steps leading to action were outlined,
however.

Other questions dealt with in the resolutions of the con-
gress reflected current panaceas to harmonize the conflict
between capital and labor but occupied little of the atten-
tion of the delegates. Throughout the deliberations of the
congress, free land, paper money, and the national debt
were linked together. 51 Co-operation was recognized as a
“sure and lasting remedy for the abuses of the present in-
dustrial system” and unions were urged to set up co-opera-
tive workshops.

The congress failed to take an independent stand on the
problems arising out of Reconstruction in the South. IJn-

62

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

able fully to grasp the significance, for labor as a whole,
of the great social struggle of the Negro people in the
South for land and democracy, the labor delegates saw
only the immediate need for “a speedy restoration of the
South” and for the establishment of normal relations after
four 3 ? ears of war and sacrifice. In their resolution they
followed President Johnson who aimed to come to terms
with the Southern planters and defeat the efforts of the
Radical Republicans in Congress, whose program for the
destruction of the political power of the former slave-
holders of the South gave aid and hope to the struggle of
the Negro people for freedom. While they gave formal
support to Johnson’s program, the trade unionists, still
politically inarticulate, remained aloof from the bitter
political struggle which raged between the Radicals and
their opposing forces.*

Primary attention was given to trade union problems
which overshadowed all other questions at the congress. A
forceful resolution urged the organization of all workers
into existing unions, the formation of unions where none
existed, and the establishment of trades assemblies and
national organizations. It advocated more rigid enforce-
ment of the apprenticeship system, the boycott of goods
made by convict labor unless wages paid were as much
as that paid to outside mechanics, support of “sewing-
women and daughters of toil,” better housing for the
people, the distribution of more land to actual settlers,

*For a fuller discussion, see James S. Allen, Reconstruction, The
Battle for Democracy, New York, 1937; also, Manuel Gottlieb,
Struggle for Land During Reconstruction,” Science and Society,
V°l. HI. 1939, pp. 356-88.

THE NATIONAL LABOR UNION 63

and the establishment of workingmen’s lyceums, institutes
and reading rooms. Support of the labor press was urged.*
As for strikes, it recommended that every honorable means
be exhausted before such a course be resorted to, but where
there was no other alternative, it urged unity for a suc-
cessful result. A suggestion that “arbitration” committees
be appointed by each trades assembly for the settlement of
all disputes was not favorably received and was not in-
cluded in the resolution finally adopted.

Following the congress, a delegation called on President
Johnson to present the demands of the National Labor
Union on the eight-hour day, on convict labor, and on
public lands. Johnson expressed sympathy with the stand
of the congress on convict labor and on public lands and
cited his record.f But he was evasive on the eight-hour
issue which he said government and labor “could consider
and settle as they went along.” 52

In the M older 8 ’ Journal for September, Sylvis com-
mented editorially on the first congress of the National
Labor Union. He hailed it as a great success and ex-
pressed agreement with the principles set forth in its
resolution. He dissented from the views of such trade
unionists as Fincher, who regarded independent political
action as outside the province of trade unionism and who

•Special mention was made of the Workingmen’s Advocate of
Chicago, the Daily and Weekly Voice of Boston, the Daily Union
of Detroit, the Molders International Journal of Philadelphia, the
Ilerald of Troy, the Industrial Advocate of St. Louis, and the German
Reform of Chicago as deserving the support and patronage of work-
ingmen in those localities.

t Johnson had introduced a Homestead Bill in Congress in the
’fifties and supported the passage of the law in 1862.

64

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

were therefore opposed to the direction the congress had
taken. As an organizer Sylvis was critical, also, of the
failure of the congress to establish the machinery for its
proper functioning. The failure to present a constitution
and rules he regarded as a “sin of omission,” and held that
such a procedure would have given “character and impor-
tance to the movement.” This weakness in the plan of or-
ganization he characterized in the following colorful terms :

“The fact is the convention met, held a five days’ ses-
sion, built a splendid railroad track, placed upon it a
locomotive complete in all its parts ; provided an engineer
and numerous assistants, placed them upon the footboard,
told them to go ahead and then suddenly adjourned with-
out providing wood and water to get up steam ; and there
the whole machine will stand until the third Monday in
August, 1867, when it is hoped that there will be such
a coming together of workingmen as will astonish the old-
est inhabitant and that the work so nobly begun at Balti-
more will be completed.” ,s

Sylvis and the Labor Party

At the time of the anti-war movement, before the Civil
War, Sylvis had already indicated doubt and dissatisfac-
tion with “political demagogues and traitors” and showed
contempt for the practices of the politicians of both par-
ties. During the war he had learned to be increasingly
suspicious of both parties in their relations to labor. When
the molders were on strike in Philadelphia in 1863, the
North American, a Philadelphia newspaper, had sought
to discredit and break the strike by falsely claiming that

THE NATIONAL LABOR UNION 65

the molders were highly paid because they had obtained
a 50 per cent increase in wages. The owner of the A orth
American, Morton McMichael, ran for mayor of Phila-
delphia in 1864 on the Republican ticket and Sylvis de-
termined to mobilize Philadelphia’s labor vote to defeat
him At a mass meeting of which he was chairman, resolu-
tions were adopted urging labor “to vote against any man
of any party who is now or ever has been an enemy to
workingmen.” During the campaign Sylvis repeated: “I
will vote and work against any man of any party who
opposes the labor movement; and I consider it the duty of
every workingman to do the same.”

Two years later Sylvis referred again to the need for
labor representation in government at a mass meeting
of an eight-hour league in Chicago, at which six thousand
people were present. Cameron who presided reported that
Sylvis had shown “in a masterly manner that the legisla-
tion of the past had been the work of the capitalist and
that the legislation of the future, in order to accomplish
the desired result, must be the product of representative

men from the labor ranks.” 5j

Following the congress of the National Labor Union,
Sylvis publicly declared that labor must build its own
party and that he had no hope of improving labor’s posi-
tion through the two existing parties. Convinced that he
could win the support of the workingman behind such a
party, he said:

“We have tried the balance-power or make-weight ex-
pedient of questioning candidates, and throwing our votes
in favor of such as indorsed or were pledged to our inter-
ests. How vain and futile this expedient has proven is

66

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

known to all. It is but a history of broken promises and
violated pledges and invariably ends in exposing our weak-
ness ; for say what you will, men of opposite opinions to
the candidates will not trust him in the face of such fre-
quent deceptions. This and other considerations have
convinced us that if we resort to political action at all, we
must keep clear of entangling alliances. With a distinct
workingman’s party in the field, there can be no distrust,
no want of confidence. When it becomes a fixed fact that
workingmen can vote for men of them and with them, the
incentive will be sufficient to unite the masses in one <*rand
struggle for victory. We should then know for whom and
for what we voted. Every toiler would feel that he held
his destiny in his own hands.” 56

In the presidential campaign of 1867, Sylvis’ name was
put forward by labor papers and other periodicals as a
possible vice-presidential candidate on an independent
ticket with Congressman S. F. Cary, of Ohio, a supporter
ot the eight-hour movement and of money reform. He was
also mentioned as a running mate on the Democratic ticket
with George H. Pendleton, a currency reformer, and on
the Republican ticket with Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of
e reasur y in the Lincoln cabinet. Sylvis, however, never
showed any interest in a political career for himself, and
never sought a political office.

In reviewing the issues of the National Labor Union
congress before the molders’ convention in 1867, Sylvis
Stressed especially the importance of using the established
mstruments of democracy to prevent a repetition of Old
or d tyranny and oppression. He warned that “the
helpless condition of the vast majority of the producing

THE NATIONAL LABOR UNION 67

classes in Europe and Asia, while it excites our warmest
sympathy, should admonish us to guard our rights with
greater vigilance, lest we suffer encroachments to steal
upon us imperceptibly, that we may find ourselves bound
hand and foot, helpless for resistance.” 97

Taking his examples from the struggles of the working-
men abroad, he pointed to the fact that there the “rich
are made richer and the poor poorer. Wealth is continu-
ally drifting into the hands of a few, the lands are monopo-
lized by the nobility, and all laws are framed to maintain
this condition of things, because the victims of this ex-
clusive monopoly are disfranchised, the rich mate laws to
protect themselves and the poor have no remedy.” 58 Sylvis
castigated the gold gamblers, money brokers and specula-
tors, and the coal and iron capitalists, and indicated again
his hostility to the oppressing classes :

“I need not tell you, gentlemen, with what aptness the
capitalists of America imitate those abroad. It is a con-
tinual struggle to reach the same standard of exclusiveness,
to exercise the same tyranny and to confine our privileges
to the same limits. Here where our institutions give better
means of defence, it requires greater tact and shrewdness
on the part of capital to accomplish the results; hence we
find it more prolific in expedients, more untiring in its
efforts. . . .

“Society is never safe when such proscriptions are tol-
erated. Here is the fountain, the sacred fountain of all
revolutions, all strikes, all flour riots, or ‘bread or blood’
demonstrations which so frequently darken the annals of
the world ; this is the point to which the producing classes
have been depressed and at which they now rebel, claiming

1

68 WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

the lr righ ts and resolving to attain them. There is a point

yon endurance to which men may be driven, let their
ncration for the law be what it may ”

Independent political action he urgrf as an immediate
ecessity so that labor could have a voice in federal and
s a e cgislation: “We can make laws and repeal laws. We
possess the power because we have the numbers to annul

latI„n P W SS1TC aCt emanating fr ° m st * te or national legist

hem by in ° Ur rUkrS * be juS ‘ ° r

them by men from our own ranis whose sympathies and

m erests are identical with our own” 60 Ho i
worlfrr«j k • x He chided the

T 0 f ers f “ r to ” long indifferent to the “means of
defence aftordod by the institutions of the land,” and de-
clared h.s conviction that the workers would gradual

P^Ltpallf h b ° Und *” hMd “ d *"* old

“Yet it too often happens that we lack the moral cour-
age to sever our political associations, and thousands of
workingmen wffl suffer themselves to be used as hobbies

i:;: h r::r":r spi rf dem T gues rid ° *““**•

outa single benefit thai VouW^ ££

« - -

feet nrnn h pair of boots upon your

bow !! “f th pon you ■ back - A11 of tbem stand -t -

r , \ aS the P roscr iptive agents that never fail to

mot ed th ° f Pr ° m0ti0n to us aU - The rich are pro-
Of con’d t P °° r , are “ dUded - Why? Because °-r 'jLn
but the riclll 4 ’ 0 ”*! haS bCCOme S ° corru P‘ «>at none
Position. ... 1 SSCSS 10 meanS t0 purchase power and

THE NATIONAL LABOR UNION 69

“If the theory of our government is the greatest good
for the greatest number why shall we not put it into prac-
tice? This government was made for the people, and we are
the people, but thus far we have proved ourselves unequal
to the task of self-government, because we bear the chains
of party. ... We are slaves not because we must be, but
because we z mil be. . . . From year to year wor kin gman are
wheedled and cajoled into supporting partisan favorites
who dare not hazard a renomination by any act of political
heterodoxy which might ‘injure the party.’ Even if a meas-
ure favorable to the interests of labor is introduced, there
is too often a secret understanding by which other mem-
bers dovetail amendments to it that render it useless or
offensive. . . . Then let us rise in the majesty of our strength
and resolve to rule instead of being ruled ; assert our rights
instead of begging for them, and occupy that proud posi-
tion which a republican form of government secures to
majorities.” 01

The political activity of the National Labor Union,
nevertheless, was confined largely to obtaining promises of
support for eight-hour laws from candidates of the old
parties. Eight-hour bills were introduced in a number of
states and in Congress, and when the National Labor
Union met again, it was possible for the legislative com-
mittee to report that six states had passed eight-hour laws
and that a bill had passed the lower House of Congress and
was pending in the Senate, providing an eight-hour day
for government employees. The state laws, however, were
described as “frauds on the laboring classes” 62 for they
had not been enforced. The working class was as yet too

70

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

inexperienced politically and too weak to make secure the
benefits of such a victory.

The Second Congress

The changing social scene heightened the importance of
the second congress of the National Labor Union, held in
Chicago, in August, 1867. Delegates from sixty-four or-
ganizations attended, the majority of whom were from
trade unions, but representation was not confined to the
trade unions alone. Six representatives were present from
farmers’ societies and nine from eight-hour leagues. The
government had ceased the issuance of greenbacks and
was in fact contracting the currency. Unemployment af-
fected large sections of the population. The farmers were
feeling the effects of low prices for their crops. Anti-
monopoly sentiment among the farmers in the Middle
West was expressed through the formation of farm asso-
ciations and eight-hour leagues. The beginning of an alli-
ance of workers and farmers was in process. Inflationary
money schemes were gaining ground among those who
were hoping to keep America a nation of small owners. At
the same time these ideas deflected labor from the pursuit
of its class interests. Currencj^ reforms and co-operation
now dominated the thoughts of leaders of the National
Labor Union, and Sylvis, too, was giving more attention
to these questions than hitherto.

Sylvis took an active part in the deliberations of the sec-
ond congress. He helped to draw up a constitution of
the organization and served as chairman of the Commit-
tee on Public Lands and Agriculture. It is said that he

THE NATIONAL LABOR UNION 71

“barely escaped” election as president of the National
Labor Union. Frederick Sorge remarks that the strong
opposition of the trade union delegates to the money
question which Sylvis now supported was sufficient to
prevent his election. 03

The Chicago meeting again endorsed the resolutions
adopted in 1866, but added the demand for “a just mone-
tary system” and issued this platform as its Declaration
of Principles. The paramount issues before labor were
still the eight-hour question, independent political action,
and the problems of Negro, woman, and immigrant labor.
Once again workingmen were advised to elect men to office
from the ranks of labor whose primary object would be to
enact an eight-hour law. Organization of unions was rec-
ommended, and the system of co-operation was to be inves-
tigated by a committee to which Sylvis was elected.

A resolution on public lands proposed by Sylvis ex-
pressed fear for the growth of a landed aristocracy and
that the public domain meant for the people w-ould soon
be entirely inaccessible to the workingman. Previously
he had condemned the government’s action in selling 800,-
000 acres of Cherokee lands to a speculative ring known
as the American Emigrant Company which was organized
by men, some of whom occupied high places in govern-
ment, for the purpose of inducing foreign workingmen to
emigrate.* He had discerned the motives behind this ven-

* The American Emigrant Company, also referred to as the Emi-
grant Aid Society, was incorporated for $1,000,000 in 1863. In 1864
it received support of the Federal government under the contract
labor law passed by Congress. The law was repealed in 1868 after
tremendous mass pressure.

72 WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

ture and denounced it as “one of the remedies for strikes
proposed by our oppressors.” The whole transaction was
condemned by him as “another scheme to legislate the
land from under the feet of the masses and to render them
more dependent by closing every avenue of relief from the
thraldom of monopolists.” lie expressed the workingmen’s
hope of escape in the following words :

“Capital feels unsafe in waging a war against labor so
long as workingmen have access to land. The object
is to get possession of it and thus cut off all retreat.
There is still hope for the toiler . . . while he can stand
upon a portion of God’s footstool and call it his own.” 6 ‘
His proposal to the National Labor Union convention,
which was adopted, recommended that government appro-
priate twenty-five million dollars to aid in establishing a
general eight -hour day, to grant free lands to actual set-
tlers among the unemployed and for the general benefit of
labor “without distinction of sex, color, or locality.”

IV. PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

Organization of Negro Workers

An address to the workingmen issued by the National
Labor Union just prior to the Chicago convention in 1867
embodied the resolutions of the first congress and spoke
of labor’s abiding interest in the question of Negro labor.
It conveyed the message that it was labor’s concern to be
interested in the status of the Negro as a workingman
and especially in the part the Negro was to take m ad-
vancing labor’s cause. A twofold fear was expressed:
namely, that employers would use Negro labor as strike-
breakers and that as citizens and voters Negroes might
be turned against labor’s interests.

“Negroes,” the address declared, “are four million
strong and a greater proportion of them labor with their
hands than can be counted from among the same number
of any other people on earth. Can we afford to reject
their proffered co-operation and make them enemies? By
committing such an act of folly we would inflict greater
injury upon the cause of labor reform than the combined
efforts of capital could accomplish. ... So capita s 8
North and South would foment discord between the whites
and blacks and hurl one against the other as interest and
occasion might require to maintain their ascendancy and

continue the reign of oppression.” 6

The address approached the question with caution, out
of fear that the adherents of the National Labor Union

73

74

75

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

would not be unanimous on the question but stated that
it could not avoid the issue, and advocated unity of Negro
and white.

“What is wanted,” it urged, “is for every union to help
inculcate the grand ennobling idea that the interests of
labor are one; that there should be no distinction of race
or nationality ; no classification of Jew or Gentile, Chris-
tian or infidel ; that there is one dividing line, that which
separates mankind into two great classes, the class that
labors and the class that lives by others’ labor.” 69

The Negro question was vigorously debated at the
1867 Congress in Chicago, when the Committee on Negro
Labor proposed deferment of the question until the next
convention on the ground that it “involved so much mys-
tery and upon it [there was] so wide a diversity of opinion
among our members.” Sylvis opposed deferment and de-
clared that Negro labor had already become an issue, that
white workers were already striking against black workers
and that unless labor was united the trade union movement
would be destroyed and Negroes would cast their votes
against labor. The delegates finally evaded a decision on the
question and it was laid over until the next convention on
the ground that the principles already adopted made no
further action on the subject necessary.

Sylvis, however, adhered strictly to the recommenda-
tions of the address which proposed the formation of trade
unions, eight-hour leagues, and other labor organizations
among the Negro people and also invited them to partici-
pate in the “general labor undertaking.” He was con-
sistent in demanding that white and Negro workingmen
unite, that Negroes be organized into the trade unions,

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

and that equal pay for equal work prevail. But he did
not indicate at any time that he was sympathetic to the
struggle of the Negro people in the South for land, educa-
tion, and democracy or that he understood its meaning for
the labor movement as a whole. On several occasions he
was critical of the Radical Republican program and
denounced government expenditures for the Freedmen’s
Bureau because the needs of the workingmen were being
ignored and no similar assistance was being extended to
labor by the government. The Freedmen’s Bureau he char-
acterized as a “huge swindle upon the honest workingmen
of the country” and called for its closing. As for the South,
he was satisfied merely to demand the immediate restora-
tion of its economy.

Sylvis appears to have been unable to break down the
prejudices which were prevalent among the skilled work-
ingmen of his craft against the admission of Negro mem-
bers into the union and into the industry. He frequently
called the attention of the membership to the serious
effect on wage levels resulting from the employment of
non-union Negro molders. In the molders’ convention m
1867, he supported a resolution which gave the locals the
right to decide on the admission of Negro members but
action on the question was postponed indefinitely.
Through the columns of the Workingmen’s Advocate, too,
Sylvis and Cameron both urged equality for the Negro
in politics and industry. Rebuking the coopers’ union for
the refusal of its members to work with a Negro, t e papei
remarked editorially:

“Political equality means that the Negro race shall have
an equal voice with the Caucasian in shaping the destiny

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

77

the Workingmen’s Advocate reports of his organization
work on behalf of the National Labor Union among the
unions in Wilmington, Baltimore, Richmond and Charles-
ton, North Carolina. Negroes attended the union meetings
and Sylvia reported that “they expressed themselves well
pleased with our views.” He hoped that the Negro people
would join white labor, and saw how powerful this alliance
could be. “If we can succeed in convincing these peop e
that it is to their interest to mate common cause with us
in these great national questions, we will have power m this
part of the country that will shake Wall Street out of its
boots.” ™ He reiterated his faith in the National Labor
Union program and wrote from Augusta, Georgia: are-

ful management and a vigorous campaign will unite the
whole laboring population of the South, white and black,
upon our platform. The people will be a unit here on the
great money question because everybody is poor and ours
is a war of poverty against a moneyed aristocracy.

An upsurge of organization and strikes among egro
workers was looked upon with favor by Sylvis and other
leaders of the National Labor Union, but little effort was
made to bring Negro labor into existing unions or to or-
ganize Negro and white workers into new unions. Neg
workers were seeking jobs in skilled trades and they wanted
equality of opportunity with white workers. Members of
the craft unions were showing no disposition to aid the
Negro workers to break down the harriers of prejudice,
and Negro labor had a justified and bitter grievance
against the narrow craft exclusiveness which barred them
from membership in the unions and from apprenticeship
and skilled jobs. Furthermore, Negro labor was intensely

78

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

concerned with the struggle of the Negro people in the
South for freedom, education, and land. As allies of white
labor they hoped to achieve organization, improvement
of their economic conditions, equal pay for equal work
and equal rights in industry, and an alliance which would
advance the general interests of Negro and white. Isaac
Myers, Negro labor leader and president of the Colored
National Labor Union,* attending the convention of the
National Labor Union as delegate in 1869, expressed these
aspirations when he said :

“The white laboring men of this country have nothing
to fear from the colored laboring men. We desire to see
labor elevated and made respectable. We desire to have the
hours of labor regulated . . . and you . . . can rely upon the
support of the colored laborers of this country in bringing
about this result. If they haven’t observed these principle
it was because the doors of workshops in North, East, and
\\ est were bolted against them. American citizenship with
the black man is a complete failure if he is proscribed from
the workshops of this country. ... If American citizenship
means anything at all, it means the freedom of labor, as
broad and universal as the freedom of the ballot.” 73

The National Labor Union then adopted a resolution
which urged Negroes to form organizations in all legiti-
mate ways and to send delegates from every state in the
union to the next convention for “the National Labor
Union knows no North, no South, no East, no West,

The Colored National Labor Union was formed in 1869 as a
federation of colored labor unions patterned after the National
* Jni ° n - For a ful1 discussion, see James S. Allen, Reconstruc-
tion. l he Battle for Democracy, pp. 166-75.

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES 79

neither color nor sex on the question of the rights of

labor.” 74 t v

Sylvis’ efforts for unity with Negro labor and the pio-

nounccments of the National Labor Union did not yield
results. Negro labor could hardly be expected to rally be-
hind issues of currency reform and independent political
action for labor when these did not bear directly on its most
compelling needs. The memory of Lincoln and the Emanci-
pation Proclamation was still part of their experience,
and their fervent hope that they could yet reap the fruits
of their struggle for freedom through the program of the
Radical Republicans overshadowed the possibility of win-
ning them for the support of a labor party. The efforts
of the leaders of the National Labor Union to direct their
potential allies towards support of greenbackism and inde-
pendent political action and the failure to recognize the
basic issues in the struggle of the Negro people tended to
estrange rather than unite Negro and white labor. By
1871, the Negro trade unionists had withdrawn from the
National Labor Union.

Women’s Rights

Sylvis’ views on the organization of working women and
on women’s rights were among the most advanced of his
time. Not only was he in agreement with the position taken
by the National Labor Union that women are entitled to
equal pay for equal work, and must be organized to achieve
this equality, but he championed the demands of the
woman’s rights movement led by the noted women leaders,

80 WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, for equal

suffrage.

Economic necessity had brought many thousands of
women into factory employment during the Civil War. In
1860 about one-fifth of the factory workers were women
and their number had increased sharply during the ’sixties.
Work opportunities, however, were still limited and skilled
trades were barred to women as they were to Negroes.
Women in the sewing trades, hired in the thousands by
contractors operating under government subsidy, made
army clothing under conditions which aroused widespread
protest. A memorial to the President from the sewing
women of Cincinnati who characterized themselves as the
“wives, widows, sisters, and friends of soldiers in the army
of the United States depending on our own labor for
bread” called attention to their miserable conditions of
work. They stressed their loyalty and their willingness to
work at government rates, but declared that they could
not “sustain life” at the price paid by contractors. Their
pleas went unheeded. 75 Wages paid by contractors were
reported to average $1.54 a week for women in New York
and hours were eleven to sixteen a day.* 6 Labor generally
made gains in wages during the later war years though
these were not commensurate with rising prices, but in-
creases in wages for women were less than half of those
for men.

The early women pioneers for equal rights set out to or-
ganize the working women, to broaden their employment
opportunities and to arouse public opinion over their
plight. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton were leaders in
setting up central associations of working women, in sev-

problems and issues

81

Protective Union * In brftnches q{ labor

r f h :;"et:ct er — * *

Cto— He considered it the duty and responsi-
bly of the organized
their efforts to organize and especially

wages for similar work. NatloDa l Labor Union,

After the locates of equal

he became one he denounced the workingmen

f,

all aim without making women the compam

It was his firm conviction, moreover, that women

•The unions agitated for hi S h " also’ attempted to

jobs and conducted cducataona P g ’ ction again illness

establish co-operatives and mS t P . Union, recognized as

and old age. The Working ^Womens Protecti ^ contrjbuted to _

a labor organization by the a a i trade un ; on s 0 r into sep-

wards organizing women into « ^ membership,

arate unions when they were barred from

82

WILLIAM II. SYLVIS

■ I

have equal opportunities with men in education and in the
professions. He cited the advances of women in those states
where they had won the right to vote for school boards and
to hold office and declared: “Why should women not enjoy
every social and political privilege enjoyed by men? The
time, I hope, is not far when universal suffrage and uni-
versal liberty will be the rule all over the world.” 79
Sylvis frequently used the columns of the women’s rights
journal, The Revolution \ to present labor questions to
workingmen and women and also addressed meetings of the
Working Women’s Protective Union.

. The consis tent support given by Sylvis and the Na-
tional Labor Union to working women was far in advance
of the policies of the national unions. Out of the thirty
national unions in existence after 1860, only two, the
printers and cigarmakers, admitted women to their ranks.
The National Labor Union, the American affiliates of the
International Workingmen’s Association, and the eight-
hour leagues also granted full membership rights to women.

The seating of Elizabeth Cady Stanton as a delegate to
the New York Congress of the National Labor Union in
1868 created a sharp controversy among the delegates.
Susan B. Anthony, representing the Working Women’s
Protective Union, Mrs. Mary Kellog Putnam of the same
organization and Mrs. Mary MacDonald of the Women’s
Labor Union of Mount Vernon had been seated without
contest. Opposition to Mrs. Stanton, who was accredited
as delegate from the Women’s Suffrage Association,
developed on the ground that the latter was not a labor
organization. Sylvis favored seating Mrs. Stanton, and
spoke vigorously in her defense: “She is one of the boldest

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

83

writers of the age and has done more than anybody I know
to elevate her class and my class too, and God knows
they need elevation.” 80 Mrs. Stanton was finally seated by
a vote of 44 to 19. Later when eighteen of the opposing
delegates threatened to leave the convention and resign
from the National Labor Union, a resolution was offered
to pacify them: “By the admission of Mrs. Stanton to this
body the National Labor Congress does not regard itself
as endorsing her peculiar ideas or committing itself to the
question of female suffrage, but simply regards her as a
representative from an organization having for its object
‘the amelioration of the condition of those who labor for
a living.’ ”

The congress, w'hile not ready to endorse woman suf-
frage, pledged aid to the working women in facilitating
organization into unions, demanded application of the
eight-hour law to women workers, and urged Congress and
the state legislatures to enact laws providing equal pay for
equal work for women in government employ. Susan B.
Anthony’s effort to commit the National Labor Union to
the support of the women in their struggle for the right
to vote was defeated by those delegates who feared that the
trade unions were not yet ready to accept and fight for
tliis demand. The Revolution displayed some irritation on
this score but it was nevertheless loud in its praise ol the
results of the congress. In an early issue following the New
York session, Mrs. Stanton wrote:

“The delegates [more than a hundred] were of more
than average ability, leaders equal to any men of the age.
. . . The interests of the country would be safe in hands like
these. In their discussion of great national questions . . .

84- WILLIAM H. SYLYIS

their debates were superior to those of any body of states-
men ever assembled on this continent. ’ 81

The admission of four women delegates to the Congress
of the National Labor Union in 1868 and the appointment
of Kate Mullaney, president of the Collar Laundry Work-
ing Women’s Union of Troy, New York, as assistant secre-
tary and national organizer of women was praised by the
women leaders as “a new era in workingmen’s conven-
tions.” The Collar Laundry Working Women’s Union of
Troy with a membership of four hundred women had con-
tributed $1,000 to the striking moldcrs during the great
lockout of 1867. On his election as president of the Na-
tional Labor Union in 1868, Svlvis gave public recognition
to this act and proposed that Kate Mullaney, the union’s
president, whom he characterized as “the smartest and
most energetic woman in America,” be given the post of
assistant secretary and organizer of women.

The women’s rights leaders also approved the stand of
the congress on an independent labor party and remarked
editorially that “they have inaugurated the grandest
movement of the century, proved themselves wise in read-
ing the signs of the times and cunning in securing the
only elements of faith and enthusiasm that will make the
New National Party of America, the foundations of which
they are now laying, triumphant in 1872. The producers,
the workingmen and women, the Negroes, are destined to
form a triple power that shall speedily wrest the sceptre
of government from the non-producers, the land monopo-
lists, the bond holders and the politicians.” 62

On another occasion, The Revolution expressed admira-
tion for Sylvis’ leadership of the labor congress : “In a

problems and ISSUES

85

• wav in a few brief sentences, he disposed

With him almost unanimously and siiencn g
tion.” 83

International Labor Unity

The profound interest which Sylvis showed in the trade
union movement abroad and in the great ^
of the people in Europe agarnst tyramy^PP^ ^

WaS Tand d m"sS oTthe ~ of Europe and his fear

CTSr coition was

which rests upon a who produce

upon the shoulder dtplored their low wages

what the few monopolize. He dep labor to

d these pyramids built

help them to le-vel g oimressed humanity

of t " w- - °w d ;

combine them for one common P u ^°“ “ tron | ho lds of
will commence offensive war ^against the strong

monopoly and centralization. j Svlvis sought

Early in his career as trade union lead r Sy g

to learn better methods of orgam ^ producers’ co-

enees of the British trade — ^w*h the leaders of
operatives. He was m coiresp d Soot land, and

86 WILLIAM II. SYLVIS

information on the state of the trade in both countries
with the objective of controlling the importation of strike-
breakers and checking the activities of the American
Emigrant Company.

No satisfactory understanding grew out of the ex-
change, and Sylvis complained bitterly against the union
officials abroad. He accused them of collusion with Ameri-
can employers to encourage the emigration of molders
here without acquainting them with the true state of
affairs, in return for which the officials received a “head
tax.” Determined to reach the membership of these unions,
Sylvis issued a circular for distribution in England and
Scotland warning the workingmen against the swindle of
the American Emigrant Company. 85 These experiences con-
vinced him more than ever that international labor unity
must be effected and that united action on all matters
concerning labor must be achieved. In 1867 he told the
molders :

“I have long been convinced of the beneficial results
which would accrue to the interest of labor by an alliance
with trade organizations throughout the world. Our aims,
objects and interests are the same everywhere and I look
upon this as the safest plan to prevent an unjust com-
petition, because it would destroy the power of the capi-
talists to supplant workingmen struggling for their rights
in one portion of the world by the importation of help
from another. We could hold communication at close in-
tervals and keep the producing classes informed of the
movements of capitalists in both hemispheres. ... In this
particular, the Atlantic cable might prove as advantageous
to us as it is to the others.” 86

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

87

Svlvis urged unity with the labor movement abroad as the
JJ of ininating prejudice among native -rkingmen

aeainst the foreign horn, and said.
g «Under existing circumstances, strands fr^oth^

countries are looked upon with suspicion £
when they approach our wo rkshops Them advent

T l the same interests and feelings, recognizing ^ mem-

•„ his trade organization as the only essential pass-
bership m his traae g defy the

port, we could build up a power that would dety

world.” < . that Svlvis followed with

It is not surprising, therefore, t J ^ labor

keen interest every development in about

movement and was receptive to efforts j> J*
international unity of labor This In _

low the developments in, and » coop tbe First

ternational Workingmen’s Association, kno^ ^ London

International, which had eon oim European

through the efforts of Karl Marx and other^

working class leaders. The n « r ” a tQ tbe Bame date

world congress in Gene™ •» Labor Un i 0 n in Balti-

„f the first congress of the K aho ^ ^ GenCT a

more. Karl Marx, who wrote the pj; of the

congress, commented on the B

88

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

National Labor Union: “I am very pleased,” said Marx,
“with the American workers* congress at Baltimore. . . .
The slogan there was organization for struggle against
capital and, curiously enough, most of the demands which
I drew up for Geneva were also put forward there by the
correct instincts of the workers.” 88

Referring at another time to the similarity in program
of the Geneva congress and the National Labor Union he
noted that at the same time as the National Labor Union
was putting forth the demand for an eight-hour day in
Baltimore, the Geneva congress of the International
Workingmen’s Association . . . resolved that “a limitation
of the w r orking day is a preliminary condition without
which all further attempts at improvement or emancipa-
tion must prove abortive. . . . The Congress proposes eight
hours as the legal limit of the working day.’* 89

To the request for a delegate to Geneva, the National
Labor Union at its first meeting tendered the thanks of
the organization “to the Central Organization of Labor
in Europe together with a copy of the proceedings of this
convention bidding them Godspeed in their glorious work.”
But lack of finances prevented the congress from sending
a delegate.

The activities of the International Workingmen’s Asso-
ciation and the decisions of the General Council were first
reported fully in a weekly labor paper, the National Work-
man, the initial issue of which appeared in New York on
October 13, 1866. The National Workman later became
the official organ of the State Workingman’s Assembly,
headed by William J. Jessup, one of the corresponding
secretaries of the National Labor Union and a close co-

problems and issues

89

worker of Sylvia. Eoll by trade, estab-

the London society o P rf the First Interna-
ls,, chairman of the by direct correspond-

tional. Through Jessup^ d 1 ^ 7^ touch with the

pffi S * the

ttZSZSZp-* - -

Officers of the First InternaLona^ Union, in

At the second congress o the Natl ^ ^ agent

1867, Sylvis proposed ice ;n letting men know

to Europe who could , do an d gain information

when wc have strikes in ns workingmen

from the people which he can tr— Jo h J

of this country/- The congr^^opt^ ^

pressing sympathy and P t mc& \ and social

workingmen “in their Jugg ^ olion P by S ylvis, elected
wrongs,” and, supporting ^ and one of the

Richard Trevellick, a Detr i tQ the Lausanne

leading labor organizers 1 ^ But aga in the Na-

congress of the Firs n e the neces sary funds

tional Labor Union could not pioviu

for the trip. after Sylvis’ death, that the

It was not until > ‘ ble to sen d A. C.

National Labor Union was ^ally ^ ^

Cameron as delegate to ^ re£ormer; who was

advanced by Horace H. J ^ National Labor

taking an active part in the attai:

Union.

90

WILLIAM H. S YL VIS

Cameron did little to cement relations between the
organizations. Although the delegates to the National
Labor Union Congress were sympathetic to the establish-
ment of fraternal relations with the International Work-
ingmen’s Association, no steps were taken towards a
formal affiliation. In 1870, when the First International
was confronting serious division within its ranks abroad,
and the National Labor Union itself was entering the
period of decline, attempts were made to establish working
relations with the International.

Frederick Sorge, a delegate from the affiliated General
German Workingmen’s Association,* proposed a resolu-
tion, which was adopted, endorsing the principles of the
First International and expressing the intention of affiliat-
ing with it “at no distant date.” But the affiliation was
never consummated.

As president of the National Labor Union, Sylvis main-
tained cordial and friendly relations with the Interna-
tional. When danger of war between the United States and
Great Britain appeared imminent in 1869, f the First

•Sorge organized the Social Party in 1867 and later became cor-
responding secretary of the American section of the International
Workingmen’s Association. In 1869, the Social Party became affiliated
with the National Labor Union as Labor Union 5, but withdrew in
1870 when the National Labor Union leaders were espousing money
schemes and deflecting labor from a course best suited to its interests.
In 1871, the organization became part of Section I of the North
American Federation of the First International.

t Failure of the British Government to offer adequate compensa-
tion to the United States for damages wrought by the blockade-
runner Alabama which had been built in Britain for the South
brought a sharp attack from Senator Sumner, Chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and stimulated talk of war
to annex Canada as reparations.

problems and issues

91

First International fcl J political develop-

point cl 1 —cation addressed to

ments in the United States. ^ Karl Marx for

President Lincoln in 186 ejection to the

the Council congr atnlat^ hi» his ^ ^

Presidency and P^edictc ou3 cl e 0 tion, so death

cry was the watchword of h p ^ ^ rc _ clection .

to slavery was the ‘‘triump h »Mwar^y ^ Amer;can War
The letter expressed the hope middle classes

of Independence initiated a ^ * f(ff thc working

so the American anti-sla^ei}

«-? -f - ;

which he characterized 1 s mac ^ reprinted in the

and progress throughout c * President Lincoln,

British press. On the ~ Johnson conveying
the General Council wrote to ideni * s martyr-

the sorrow of European labor at

dom. 01 , .,1 TTvorrland, already tense

sympathy tor fut

^"tothe Confederacy during the Cml War, becam ^ ^
ther strained the General Conncilo ^ The

American labor to P"™" Ainer ican people, the

war had brought hardship ;t had offere d compensa-

iSSi- and in the Impulse it had

92 WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

given to the working class movement. “Another war,” Marx
stressed, “which did not have for its objective the cause of
the working people would prevent the development of an
independent labor movement.” He ventured to point out
further the historic path which the American labor move-
ment should take in the approaching period: “Yours then
is the glorious task of seeing to it that at last the work-
ing class shall enter upon the scene of history, no longer
as a servile following, but as an independent power, as
a power imbued with a sense of its responsibility and cap-
able of commanding peace where their would-be masters
cry war.” 92

Sylvis’ prompt and militant response to this appeal in
June, 1869, was warmly received on the other side: He
wrote:

“I am very happy to receive such kindly words from our
fellow workingmen across the water; our cause is a com-
mon one. It is war between poverty and wealth; labor
occupies the same low condition and capital is the same
tyrant in all parts of the world. Therefore I say our
cause is a common one. I, in behalf of the working people
of the United States, extend to you and through you to
those you represent, and to all the down-trodden and
oppressed sons and daughters of toiling Europe, the right
hand of fellowship. Go ahead in the good work you have
undertaken, until the most glorious success crowns your
efforts. That is our determination. Our late war resulted
in the building up of the most infamous monied aristocracy
on the face of the earth. This monied power is fast eating
up the substance of the people. We have made war upon

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

93

it and we mean to win. If we can, we will win through the
ballot box; if not then we will resort to sterner "

Sylvis’ death, a month later, virtually ended the close
personal relations which had existed between the officials
o{ the National Labor Union and the General Conned,
although official communications continued o
changed.

The Co-operative Movement

During the post-war depression, as the strikes of the
molders’ locals multiplied with consequent severe dram on
the resources of the national union, Sylvis sought desper-
ately for a course of action other than strikes > to safe-
guard and advance the workingmen’s living standai • s
1866 he had estimated that expenditures of more than a
million dollars had been made on strikes by the loc^s and
the national body since the beginning of the decade. A
the Toronto convention of the molders m 1868, he gave the

reasons for his changed outlook:

“I could see no prospects before us but that o con mua
trouble and taxation [assessments] and that unless we
col adopt some plan that would show to our memb
a reasonable prospect of ultimate and permanent success

and relief from strikes and taxation they

“ “ ed I pl ^ lely

lellpzation ihe‘ cry comes up-sow*^ —

belief that wealth and monopoly power arose
out of exorbitant interest rates on money controlled by

94

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

the financiers of Wall Street and not out of the exploita-
tion of labor. Yet in the system of wage labor, he recog-
nized a source of poverty and an impediment to the
economic advancement of workingmen. “The present un-
satisfactory condition of labor,” he told the moldcrs, “is
the effect of some great all-pervading cause [the system
of wage labor] and the effects cannot be removed without
first removing the cause.” His solution was to abolish
the wage system by the establishment of union co-opera-
tives which he said would “divide the profits of labor
among those who produce them, and drive the army of
non-producers to honorable employment or starvation.” 93
By a wide system of producers’ co-operatives, he hoped
that strikes would be eliminated, permanent relief would
be brought to labor against poverty and unemployment,
and the system of work for wages eventually abolished
entirely.

Basic to the establishment of these co-operatives, he
noted, was the existence of strong trade unions. But now
Sylvis viewed the unions as having limited although im-
portant functions. He believed that they would continue
to serve as valuable training schools for labor, but only
as defensive instruments. Influenced by the erroneous pro-
gram of the money reformers, he had come to believe with
them that the “money power” alone, by controlling the
country’s credit and by exacting exorbitant interest rates,
was the chief menace to labor. “If we have no political
kings,” Sylvis once said, “we have money kings and they
are the worst kings in the world.” He supported the de-
mands of the money reformers for legislative action for

problems and issues

95

inflationary paper money currency, abolition of the
national banting system, easy credit and a
of interest to be controlled by the government instead of
the banks. The abolition of wage labor and the future of
co-operation, he held, rested largely on these legislative
reforms of the currency which could be won through inde-
pendent political action by labor. Viewing this as the ac-
tion he declared that with the establishment of a just
monetary system “there would no longer exist the necessi y

for trade unions. , ,

Similar views, advanced by middle class reformers, had

aroused illusory hopes among workingmen abroad and
theories that producers’ co-operatives would displace the
profit system and thereby avoid class struggle were widely

^ " Ka r^M^irx who was guiding the struggles of the work-
ingmen abroad indicated the fallacy of these ideas in the
Inaugural Address delivered at the .mt.al mcetmg ^
the International Workingmen’s Assoc, atmn ,1864. He

hke sllve labor and serf labor, wage labor was “destined

proved beyond doubt that, however excellent in prm-
ciple and however useful in practice, co-operative labor,
W within the narrow circle of the casual efforts of
private workmen, will never he able to arrest the growth

96

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

I

1

ii

in geometrical progression of monopoly, to free the masses,
nor even perceptibly to lighten the burden of their mis-
eries.” 07

Marx showed that to have significant consequences co-
operative labor must be developed to “national dimen-
sions and consequently to be fostered by national means”
and that therefore to “conquer political power has become
the great duty of the working class.” To this end Marx
noted in the report which he prepared for the General
Council and which was presented to the Geneva Congress
of the International in 1866 that the trade unions were
more than defensive instruments. They were, instead,
organizing centers for the working class to embrace all
workers still outside their ranks. Their functions were to
improve the economic status of the workers but also to
unite and stimulate the workers’ participation in, and sup-
port of, the broader social and political movements and to
work for the emancipation of the workers as a class.

After 1867, the molders’ union under Sylvis’ guidance
launched a new program establishing co-operatives wherever
there was a strike in progress, in the belief that these
would eventually displace the employers in the industry.
Co-operative foundries were set up in Troy, Pittsburgh,
Cincinnati, and other cities with the financial assistance of
the international union. But these did not absorb the in-
terest of the molders for very long. Unable to compete
with capitalist enterprise, the co-operatives soon found it
necessary to break down union standards of w r ork and
conflict arose within the unions. The affairs of the union
were diverted from trade union action to business matters,

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES 91

ffhic h weakened them in the face of the growing power
of the employers.*

Sylvis did not at any time altogether abandon his re-
liance on the trade nnions and the strike weapon. Even as
late as January, 1868, when the molders- unions were
involved in a number of long and bitter strikes as an after-
math of the lock-out of 1866-67 Sylvis reiterated in the
columns of the Iron Molders' .Journal that “our union is
our stronghold and we must repel every assault no matter
at what sacrifice and when the time comes we too can play

at the same game of retaliation.” 9 '

Although he now pinned his hopes on co-operation,
Sylvis continued to believe that the right to strike was
inalienable and could never he justly prohibited by
government.

The Third Congress

The New York congress of the National Labor Union
marked a high point in its development.

•Meeting in convention in 18T0, after Sylvis’ death, the Iron
Mol“rs International Union appraised the situation regards

troubles m P lace 0 str J k e^ almost impossible and then “prescribing as

and ever} union wa undertaken by the international union

lL “

Union, 1870.)

i

98

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

Before the congress convened, in June, 1868, Sylvis
William J. Jessup, and J. C. C. Whaley, the latter, presi-
dent of the National Labor Union, addressed an open
letter to all workingmen and women. This dramatic letter,
which expressed alarm over the status of the workingmen
at the time, was intended to rouse them to support of the
forthcoming congress. It read:

“The evil effects of the late war are now telling sadly
upon the masses and the heavy burdens of taxation have
nearly paralyzed every branch of industry. Hundreds of
thousands in this land of boundless resources who are both
willing and able to work are without employment and with
difficulty obtain the necessaries of life and procure shelter
for themselves and families. Other thousands who have
employment who toil early and late — forced to practice
the most rigid economy . . . arc compelled to live upon a
scanty allowance of food, clothe themselves and families in
the coarsest fabrics and narrowly escape the pitiable con-
dition of those who have nothing to do The almost in-

tolerable burdens of the war debt rest upon those who
fought the battles and made the sacrifices, those who tilled
the land to produce supplies and those who labored in the
workshops to supply the materiel of war while the money
kings who furnished the so-called ‘sinews of war’ (and got
well paid for it) and kept out of danger are receiving ex-
orbitant rates of interest upon their loans, amassing
princely fortunes upon the misfortunes of their fellow
countrymen. . . .

“The aggregate earnings of all the industries of the
country do not exceed 600 millions and one half of these
earnings is absorbed by 5 per cent of the people, while 95

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

99

oer cent of the people receive the remaining half or 300
Lion. A continuation of such a state of thmgs must m-
Lably result in concentrating the wealth of the nation
into the coffers of a few hundred millionaires . . . and leave
„ s a few thousands of the middle class and many millions

» 09

° Among S 'the eighty-three delegates who attended this
congress of the National Labor Union, m addition to
Sylvis, were the well-known labor leaders, Fincher, Jessup,
and Richard Trevellick, and the woman’s rights leaders,
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. More of
the money reformers and land reformers were in evidence
than heretofore and there was a noticeable dec me m rep-
resentation from the eight-hour leagues. Ira Steward and
his close followers among the leaders of the eig - oui
movement were hostile to some planks in the program of
the National Labor Union. They scorned monetary reforms
as quack theories and at the same time held the narrow
view that independent political action would only serve
divert labor from what they considered as its i mam mbje
tive-the achievement of the eight-hour day. They did not
hesitate, however, to utilize the support of the two major
parties for the realization of this objective. .

The National Labor Union was now exerting consider-
able influence and was attracting the attention of the
press. Sylvis, who was elected president at this session,
estimated its strength to be 600,000 members^

The platform adopted at the convention of 1868 diftered

Koweliin has been estimated to have been 170,000

:^'^^zvr^ tory 01 Labor in ,he

United States, Vol. II. p. 47, *ew York, 1918.)

100 WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

in no great essentials from that of the Declaration of
Principles of 1867. While firm decisions were taken once
again to establish a labor party, no plans were made for
participation in the fall elections of 1868 and the con-
vention turned its support to Samuel F. Cary of Ohio,
a money reformer and a Democrat, whom it endorsed as
candidate for Congress.

Money schemes overshadowed all other questions and
consumed most of the discussion at the convention. A
cleavage was rapidly developing among the delegates.
Greenbackism was vigorously attacked by some of the
trade unionists. Fincher, who opposed the introduction of
politics into the unions, expressed opposition as well to
the endorsement of woman suffrage. A number of dele-
gates withdrew as a result of the seating of Elizabeth
Cady Stanton. Sylvis carried the convention in support
of the platform but not without considerable debate and
opposition. In answer to Fincher on the question of woman
suffrage he pointed out that “the root of the whole matter
[the labor question] lies in giving the ballot to all workers
regardless of sex, color, or nationality” and he defended
vigorously the need for independent political action by
labor.

The question of co-operatives also agitated the dele-
gates. Sylvis’ own union which had adopted the name of
the Iron Holders Co-operative and Protective Union at its
convention of 1867 announced the operation of eleven co-
operative union foundries. The carpenters and printers,
having undertaken a similar program, were likewise con-
cerned with co-operatives. Rut the interest manifested in
this new avenue of labor activity did not provide the basis

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES 101

for uniting the delegates. Wary of the trend of the conven-
tion, the trade unionists took a firm stand m defense of
strikes. They successfully opposed the resolution on co-
operation characterizing strikes as “unfortunate and un-
profitable contests between capital and labor, whic
would disappear when “the principle of co-operation is
universally recognized by all trades and callings. After
heated debate the clause in the original platform deprecat-
ing strikes was also stricken out and replaced by a unan-
imous substitute motion that the convention “recognizes
the rio-ht of workingmen and women to strike when all othei
iust and equitable concessions are refused.” The convention
likewise expressed sympathy for the several labor unions

on strike throughout the country. .

Sylvis won unanimous endorsement for his proposal that
a Department of Labor be established in the Federal gov-
ernment to concern itself with the improvement of the con-
ditions of labor and with the distribution of the public
domain. In arguing for the recognition of labor by govern-
ment he declared :

“In this country of ballots and spread eagles, when we
ask anything of Congress we are laughed at. X do not
propose to be laughed at any longer. I am an enemy to
every man who is against the class to which I belong.

It was not until twenty years later that the government
agreed to the establishment of a bureau of labor statistics
and a labor department was not incorporated into the

government set-up until 1912.

After the convention, Sylvis, as the newly elected presi-
dent of the National Labor Union, determined to build
and strengthen the organization. Although he was without

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

funds, he set about this objective with the same degree
of energy and persistence he had manifested in the work
of consolidating the molders’ union. In a circular pub-
lished soon after the congress of 1868 he appealed to the
workingmen and women to work for the cause which he de-
scribed as a “gigantic task — a social and political revolu-
tion such as the world has never seen.” He stressed the
enormous task of organizing a new party, a workingmen’s
party, and urged that labor work toward electing a Presi-
dent in 1872 and controlling Congress and the State
legislatures. “The day of monster monopolies and class
legislation must come to a close,” he wrote. Urging labor
to take “the aggressive” and have confidence in its
strength he declared that with labor in power “obnoxious
laws would disappear from our statute books, plain prac-
tical laws for the protection and encouragement of the
deserving will take their place and the drones who fatten
upon the earnings of the poor will be compelled to make
an honest living or starve.” 101

In a later circular Sylvis estimated that at least three
thousand trade unions in the country understood the
principles of the National Labor Union and could be in-
volved in its work but he deplored the fact that the unions
were holding aloof from the movement. Nor was this
altogether surprising. The national unions were few and
were striving to survive in the face of growing large-scale
mechanized industry and the untiring efforts of the em-
ployers to prevent unionism from gaining a foothold
among the workingmen. In the last years of the decade,
national unionism had not made the advances comparable
to those of the war years. Only four new national unions

problems and ISSUES

103

were formed in the post-war years. The Machinists and
Blacksmiths Union actually declined m membership, and
the first national organization of coal mmers had ceased

to exist by the end of the decade.

A federation of trade unions as conceived hy the leader

of the National Labor Union was an ideal based on labor
need to fulfill its new role. But it had not ye a en
among most of the local unions which were grappling with
the problems of organization and were not conscious of
*e importance of a united labor movement Trade unions
cIU principally among the skilled crafts which had
developed independently of each other through rank-and-
file initiative and sacrifices. They were likely, therefore t
, if'ftlouslv their independent status. Trade union
feTders it sjvis who had In, in advance of their time,
that the power exerted by trade unions, united m a federa
tion as beneficial to labor as a whole, were
becoming more absorbed by inflationary jg

meeting the stark realities confronting workingmen. T
was illustrated in the fact that when the executive com-
mittee of the National Labor Union issued an pp
Congress in December, 1868, to adopt its proposals fo
a paper currency and for the liquidation of the national
debt, it neglected to make any reference whatsoever
economic demands of the workingmen.

u,r I: i: r r ; ££

Hern states, Ly were able to establish twenty-sis new

104

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

branches of the National Labor Union. At the same time
Sylvis organized ten new locals of the molders’ union and
re-established three unions which had ceased to function.

On his return to Philadelphia, Sylvis turned his attention
to developing closer relations between the National Labor
Union and the Congress of the United States. For the first
time in the history of labor, an active labor lobby of five
resident members of the National Labor Union was estab-
lished in Washington. Its function, as described by the
executive committee, was to bring pressure on Congressmen
for the enactment of labor legislation and to take advan-
tage of opportunities to advance the work of the Na-
tional Labor Union.

The efforts of the National Labor Union and the eight-
hour leagues had finally resulted in a law adopted by
Congress on June 25, 1868, establishing the eight-hour
day for laborers, mechanics, and workmen in government
employ. This was the first official recognition of labor’s
demands by the Federal government since the ruling by
President Martin Van Buren in 1836 which established
a ten-hour day for government employees. Upon enforce-
ment of the eight-hour law, the Navy Department declared
a corresponding cut in wages. Sylvis was quick to take up
the grievances of the government employees and to press
for redress. When it appeared clear that President John-
son and Attorney General Hoar, who upheld the action of
the Navy, were collaborating with Navy officials to pre-
vent the spread of eight-hour legislation by discrediting it
as a wage-cutting device, Sylvis wrote to President-elect
Grant in the hope that he would make some statement
favorable to labor’s cause in his inaugural address. But

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

105

Grant did not even read the letter and the Workmens
Advocate reported bitterly that he was hostile to labor and
entirely in sympathy with the “money power. Sylvis vig-
orously denounced this misuse of government power m a

sharp note to the Attorney General:

“There seems to be no desire on your part nor among
your superiors at Washington to do anything for the
people. Congressmen and Senators can raise their wages
with impunity. . . . Swindling railroad corporations, land
rings, gold rings, whiskey rings, bondholders rings and
the representatives of other kinds of swindles can receive
kind words and privileges, but workingmen must be in-
sulted and take back seats. . - We still hold the ballot m

our hands and by a judicious use of it, we can ."[“thole
gain what is justly due us but now withheld by those

placed in official positions by our votes.

Mounting protests finally forced an order from the
President to rescind the wage cut. In his letter of thanks,
Sylvis commented with considerable irony that the fa
M fulfillment of official pledges, the rigidly honest con-
struction and administration of law is not the rule but the
exception; so that it has become customary to especially
thank officials when in a moment of aberration they con-
descend to equitably legislate, administer or interpret.

Decline of the National Labor Union

The high hopes which Sylvis cherished for the ability
„f the National Labor Union to organise an inde^ndcn
political party of labor were not to be rea ized. T1 e
conventions of 1869, 1870, and 1871 were held without

106

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

Sylvis’ guidance. The National Labor Union, in these final
years, far more than previously, became the instrument
of middle-class reformers, who were soon to ally themselves
with the Democratic Party. After the congress of 1869,
the disintegrating influences of their panaceas were clearly
felt. It is doubtful whether, had Sylvis lived, even he would
have been able to check the decline of this first great effort
of labor to combine its forces.

The congress of 1869 meeting a few weeks after Sylvis’
death bore the stamp of his devoted efforts to strengthen
the organization. Labor organizations predominated in
the representation of the 142 delegates who attended.
Richard Trevellick was elected president and the main
emphasis of the congress was placed on the need to proceed
with the organization of the labor party in prepara-
tion for the Presidential campaign of 1872. When the con
giess convened again in 1870, fewer trade union delegate!
were m evidence. The reformers were now firmly in the
saddle in the National Labor Union and the trade union-
ists were definitely withdrawing their support from an
organization which was no longer responsive to their most
pressing needs. Planks in the platform previously adopted
relating to the organization of women, contract labor,
settlement on public lands, better housing, and restora-
tion of civil rights to all citizens were dropped. The prin-
cipal additions to the program dealt with tariff and
monetary reforms.

When the Labor Reform Party was finally launched in
1871, it was declared to be separate from the National
Labor Union, but it endorsed the latter’s platform.

The threat of independent political action and of a po-

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

107

tential alliance of labor, the farmers, and the Negro people
held forth by the National Labor Union had caused con-
siderable apprehension in the ranks of the rising class of
industrialists. Press attacks on the congresses, after 1868,
revealed anxiety and even alarm that such an alliance in
an independent political part}' might assume challenging
proportions and jeopardize the newly won power of the
industrial and financial interests. Typical of this comment
was that of the New York Tribune of August 21, 1869,
which warned that if the workingmen succeed in constitut-
ing a new political party “they are likely to have more
strength than they can possibly use.” It declared further
that “it [the new labor party] will bring into the political
arena a number of questions hitherto excluded and regarded
by many as subjects foreign to such agitation. Among
these subjects are things more vital than the eight-hour
laws. Declarations involving broader issues of social and
political economy and organization are to be pressed by
the workingman. If we are to judge by this congress he will
demand legislation for his own benefit which it is declared
is now refused, or if obtained only at the cost of the most
ruinous agitation.”

Other papers joined the campaign to discredit political
action by the congresses which were condemned as “farci-
cal,” “windy,” “frothy,” and “demagogic.”

The alliance of labor, the Negro people, and the farmers
was, however, not consummated. The Negro people could
not fulfill their aspirations through the program of the
National Labor Union. The farmers were soon to throw
their weight to the Democratic Party which was quick to
take over their demands for an inflationary currency and

108

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

incorporate them into its platform. The labor movement
was now facing a corporate power which had developed
during the Civil War and had secured its domination over
the political life of the country with the military defeat
of the South. The new Labor Reform Party could not offer
to this labor movement the support it needed through a
program of currency reform. In the fall elections in 1871,
the Labor Party received the support of the miners, but
failed to elect any of its candidates. In Massachusetts
the Labor Party also showed some strength. But independ-
ent political action by labor was destined to face delay
and long postponement until labor could establish its class
organizations, consolidate its strength, and clarify its
program.

When the National Labor Union met again in the fall of
1871, it could muster only twenty delegates and in the
following year the first national federation of trade unions
passed from the American scene. Labor had turned away
from greenbackism to the realities of trade union struggle.
By this time the affiliates of the First International in the
United States were stimulating the workingmen to united
action m behalf of the eight-hour-day movement and in
support of the bitterly fought miners’ strike in Pennsyl-
vania. New impetus to union organization was evident and
by 1872 the number of organized workers had increased
to an estimated 300, 000. 103

The National Labor Union had failed to become the
established federation of the trade unions but its basic idea
remained. With the accumulated experience of the post-
Civil War years, the unions soon revived their efforts to
establish a new national federation to meet the increasing

109

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES

attacks by employers on their fundamental democratic
rights and on their living standards. The need for united
action was finding expression in the formation of the
Knights of Labor which emerged at the end of the ’seven-
ties as the next significant effort of American workingmen
to organize nationally.

The National Labor Union was the creation of socially
minded workingmen’s leaders, of whom Sylvis was fore-
most. His far-sighted, able, and zealous leadership gave
life to the idea. The federation during its most con-
structive period had given great impetus to the eight-hour
movement and to the organization of workingmen and
women. But it was unable to survive after the loss of
Sylvis’ leadership. For the unions, which had been its chief
support, were few and only in their earliest stages of de-
velopment, and the program of the federation was deflected
into by-paths which had little relevance to the major prob-
lems before labor in an era of rapid capitalist expansion
and control over industry and government.

V. “A VALIANT CHAMPION”

In the midst of his activities as president of the Na-
tional Labor Union Sylvis died suddenly on July 26, 1869,
at the age of forty-one from a stomach ailment with which
he had been confined to bed for four days. Richard Trcvel-
lick, the Detroit labor organizer who had been a constant
companion during the Southern tour, was at his bedside
when he died. Sylvis* sudden death created a near panic in
the ranks of the molders’ union. Leaders of the National
Labor Union, who were preparing for the fourth conven-
tion to be held in Philadelphia in September, were equally
concerned about the future of the organization without
Sylvis’ tried leadership. Announcement of his death in the
Workingmen’s Advocate appeared side by side with the
publication of the call to the convention, which had been
written by Sylvis just before his death. These last words of
Sylvis were a clarion call to the people to organize and
struggle. He appealed to all engaged in productive indus-
try to attend the convention and conceived of it as a great
people’s movement with labor as its basic core. The final
words of the call were a stirring appeal to immediate
action :

“Let workingmen everywhere without regard to place or
occupation be up and awake, busy in the great work of
organizing for the last grand struggle of human liberty.
• • • Organize everywhere and send in your delegates to the
coming convention and let us send forth an emancipation
proclamation that will carry renewed hope to every

110

“A VALIANT CHAMPION”

111

oppressed individual in the land. We are engaged m a huge
struggle. Honesty versus corruption, freedom versus
tyranny, the people against a monied aristocracy . . . that
is fast reducing the whole industrial people of the country
to mere vassals to contribute to Wall Street and its satel-
lites Who shall win? Let the People Answer.

As the news of Sylvis’ death spread, letters and resolu-
tions from local unions and from labor leaders poured
into the Warden's Advocate. These gave evidence of
the profound respect in which Sylvis had been held by the
workingmen as an honest, uncompromising, ^d devoted
leader of labor. Among them was the following letter from
the General Council of the International Workingmens
Association, dated August 18, 1869, signed by Karl Marx,

George Eccarius and others :

“The sad tidings that death has so unexpectedly and

prematurely removed your honored and able
William H. Sylvis, a loyal, persevering and > adefatl S a “
worker in the good cause from among you, have filled
us with indefatigable grief and sorrow. The great brother
hood and sisterhood of toil can but ill afford to lose such
tried Champions in the bloom of life as him whose loss we
mourn in common. But though able counsellors and trmd
leaders are not over abundant, we find consolation in the
knowledge that there are others in your ranks wilhng and
able to serve you in his stead and with the same zeal and de-
votion. We are preassured that your present session will
elect the right men for the right place and make arrang -
ments that will enable you to continue the great struggle
without any interruption and insure its success.

112

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

The concluding paragraph of the General Council’s re-
port on the fourth annual congress of the International
Workingmen’s Association, presented in December, 1869,
reproduces Sylvis’ last letter to the General Council (see
pages 92-93) as “homage to his memory as a valiant
champion of our cause.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, too, paid final tribute to Sylvis
in the pages of The Revolution, in the following words :

“The workingmen have sustained an irreparable loss in
the death of William H. Sylvis, who as thinker and writer
was among the first men of our day. . . . The leading men
in these labor organizations are just waking up to new
views of statesmanship.” 108

The press throughout the country reported his death
and there was universal acknowledgment that he was a
great leader whose honesty, integrity, and loyalty to the
cause of labor had never faltered. The accounts noted that
Sylvis died in extreme poverty, because throughout his life
he could not be swerved from his purpose by bribes, re-
wards, or intimidation. The Workingmen’s Advocate ex-
pressed its bereavement by devoting several issues to Sylvis.
It printed an extensive account of his life and work and
called for the establishment of a national monument to
his memory.

At the Basle Congress of the International Working-
men’s Association in September, 1869, A. C. Cameron, the
American delegate, paid tribute to Sylvis’ leadership :

“I feel I cannot conclude without referring to the un-
timely loss of our honored chieftain, Mr. Sylvis, a man
who had obtained a world-wide celebrity, whose name,

“A VALIANT CHAMPION”

113

familiar as a household word, had become indissolubly con-
nected with the labor reform movement. Possessed of an
indomitable energy, an extraordinary force of character
and executive ability, he was of all leaders the one qualified
to organize and consolidate the labor element in the New-
World. Cut off in the very zenith of his fame, when a life
of usefulness was unfolding itself, and when lus efforts were
beginning to yield their fruits, his loss is almost irrepara-
ble. We trust, however, that others will be raised up to
take his place, and that his death will nerve his followers
to more united and determined action.” *

In reply, the presiding officer of the Congress expressed
the sorrow of European labor at the loss of Sylvis.

The National Labor Union congress, meeting a few weeks
after his death, set up a committee to prepare an address
to the workingmen and women of the country on Sylvis’
work and to establish a memorial fund, part of which was
to support his family. At later conventions it was reported
that funds received for the memorial were small and it
finally failed to materialize, nor was the address ever
published. Sylvis’ four children by his first wife, who had
died in 1865, were separated and sent to live among friends
while his widow and child were provided for by a small
insurance fund. It was not until 1886 that the Iron Hold-
ers International Union took steps to commemorate Sylvis,
after Richard Trevellick, then an old man but stiff active
in the labor movement, urged the delegates in a speech
before the convention to honor Sylvis’ work in foun ing
the union. A granite monument was erected to him by t le

* For a complete report of Cameron’s speech at the Basle Cong
see Appendix, page 121.

114

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

International and his burial grounds outside Philadelphia
were purchased as a memorial.

William H. Sylvis was a product of a period when the
strivings of the people were a composite of their yearnings
for a return of the old world of agrarian democracy and
their efforts to adjust their lives to a new world of chang-
ing class relationships. His great contribution lay in his
devotion to the working people; in his zeal and perse-
verance in helping all of labor, whether Negro or white,
women or foreign-bora, to organize ; and in his uncompro-
mising, militant stand against those who had usurped the
people’s rights. He hoped for a world where men could live
fully; a world free from profit and greed, from exploitation
of man by man and from sinister reaction which arises from
the ruthless power exerted by a few owners over the
people. His concern with the future of labor was far more
advanced than that of his fellow craft unionists who, in
avoiding the pitfalls of reform, were strangled and para-
lyzed by their efforts to conform.

To Sylvis, the growth of corporate industry and finance
and the control they exerted over government, which de-
veloped during his lifetime, were a violation of the basic
principles of American democracy upon which the country
was founded. He sought remedy in the use of the instru-
ments of democracy to keep America a country of small
producers with widespread ownership of land, wide distri-
bution of wealth among the people, and opportunity for all
in fields which were now rapidly becoming the exclusive
privilege of a few. Along with most other social reformers
of this period of transition, Sylvis failed to understand

“A VALIANT CHAMPION”

115

the dynamics of the new class situation which was soon
to provide no alternative for labor but to gather its
forces for the coming struggle for power. Nor could he,
therefore, clearly map the path which labor must take to
achieve its aspirations for a true democracy.

None the less he stands out as a great pioneer leader whose
efforts advanced labor along the road to stronger organ-
ization and toward the objective of taking its place as an
independent class force in society. Where he erred he did
so not because of lack of high ideals and nobility of pur-
pose in the interests of his class.

Sylvis pioneered in building trade unions and seeking
to embrace within labor’s ranks workers of all trades re-
gardless of skill, sex, color, or nationality at a time when
there was no possibility of learning from the successes and
failures of the methods of previous leaders. In this basic
work the labor movement can trace the first beginnings o
stable organization and of the broader conception of indus-
trial unionism. Few trade union leaders, until recent years,
have been so outspoken on the issues of international class
solidarity and on the rights of women and Negroes. His
zeal for the building of a labor party marks him as the
first leader of a craft union who recognized that labor
must free itself from the influence of the parties controlled
by capitalism and take an independent and leading role m

behalf of the people’s interests. . ,

American labor has made great strides since Sylvis day
but many of the problems with which he grappled arc still
among the primary tasks before the trade union movement.
The organization of the unorganized workers is still in-
complete. A labor party, which is a crucial step, if labor is

116

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

to take its place as a leading force in the affairs of the
nation, has not emerged from its embryonic stages. The
interests of labor and the nation make imperative the
unity of labor and the realization of international labor
solidarity now in order to preserve our democratic rights
in the face of menacing fascism. White labor has not yet
included the great masses of Negro labor within its fold,
nor has it given sufficient aid to the Negro people in their
fight for full equality in politics, industry, and in social
life.

Sylvis took a far-sighted and courageous stand on all
these issues as they presented themselves in his day and
thus established the pattern of a militant tradition that
may well serve as an inspiring example. His qualities of
integrity, perseverance, self-sacrifice, and uncompromising
loyalty set a high standard for leadership and give him
the right to a place in the front rank of America’s militant
labor leaders.

REFERENCE NOTES

1 A. C. Cameron, in Workingmen’s Advocate, Aug. 21, 1869.

2 James C. Sylvis, The Life, Speeches, Labors, and Essays of William

H. Sylvis, p. 25, Philadelphia, 1872.
a Richard T. Ely, The Labor Movement in America, p. 43, New

York, 1886. _

i Edward Stanwood, A History of the Presidency, p. 239, New lork,

1928.

b Terence V. Powderly, Thirty Years of Labor (1859-1889), p. 30,
Columbus, Ohio, 1889.

c h. S. Zahlcr, Eastern Workingmen and National Land Policy,
p. 192, New York, 1941.

7 Terence V. Powderly, op. cit., pp. 50-51.

s Quoted in II. E. Hoaglund’s “Early Organizations of the Iron
Moldcrs,” International M older s Journal, Nov. 1911, Vol.

XLVII, p. 7.

9 From proceedings of the convention of the National Union of Iron
Moldcrs, Philadelphia, 1859.*

10 Ibid.

ii Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, Jan. 8, 1861.

12 From proceedings of the convention of the National Union of Iron
Holders, Cincinnati, 18G1.
is James C. Sylvis, op. cit,, p. 42.

11 Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, Yol. I, pp. 85-90, New Yor ,

1936.

is James C. Sylvis, op. cit,, p. 44.
is Carl Sandburg, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 42.

17 Ibid.

is James C. Sylvis, op. cit., p. 45.

20 Arthur C. Cole, The Irrepressible Conflict, p. 315, New York, 1934.

21 Carl Sandburg, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 428.

* The printed Proceedings of the conventions of the International
Moldcrs Union quoted in this volume are available at the interna-
tional headquarters of the union in Cincinnati, Ohio.

117

118 WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

22 Ibid., pp. 426-27.

23 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 611.

24 II. S. Zahler, op. cit., pp. 195-96.

25 Wesley Mitchell, A History of the Greenbacks, p. 350, Chicago,

1903.

2« From proceedings of the Iron Molders International Union Con-
vention, Buffalo, 1864.

27 James C. Sylvis, op. cit., p. 15.

28 From proceedings of the Iron Molders International Union Con-

vention, Chicago, 1865.
so James C. Svlvis, op. cit., p. 187.

ao From an address to the Iron Molders International Union Con-
vention, Buffalo, 1864.

31 Carl Sandburg, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 619.

32 ibid.

as James C. Sylvis, op. cit., p. 138.

84 Ibid., p. 140.

3 *lbid„ p. 130.

so From an address to the Iron Molders International Union Con-
vention, Chicago, 1865.

37 Ibid.

as From an address to the Iron Molders International Union Con-
vention, Buffalo, 1864.

30 Ibid.

4 ° James C. Sylvis, op. cit., p. 166.

41 From an address to the Iron Molders International Union Con-

vention, Boston, 1867.

42 From proceedings of the Iron Molders International Union Con-

vention, Chicago, 1865.

43 From an address to the Iron Molders International Union Con-

vention, Boston, 1867.

44 Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 287, New York, 1939.

45 Editorial, The Nation, Oct. 26, 1865, Vol. I, No. 17, p. 516.

46 From proceedings of the Iron Molders International Union Con-

vention, Buffalo, 1864.

4 7 J ames C. Sylvis, op. cit., p. 424.

48 “Personal Sketches,” The Revolution, July 2, 1868, Vol. I, No. 26,

p. 405.

4 » James C. Sylvis, op. cit., p. 67.

'0 Reprinted in Documentary History of American Industrial Society,

REFERENCE NOTES 119

by John R. Commons and others, Vol. IX, pp. 134-36, Cleveland,
1910.

bi Ibid., p. 43.

52 James C. Sylvis, op. cit., p. 69.

63 Ibid., p. 71.

54 Ibid.

55 Workingmen’s Advocate, Apr. 21, 1866.

56 James C. Sylvis, op. cit., p. 72.

gt From proceedings of the Iron Molders International Union Con-
vention, Boston, 1867.

58 Ibid.

69 James C. Sylvis, op. cit., pp. 176-77.

60 Ibid., p. 181.

ei Ibid., pp. 182-83. , , .

From proceedings of the National Labor Union, published in

Workingmen’s Advocate, Aug. 31, 1867.

63 Frederick A. Sorge, “Die Arbeiterbewegung in den Veremigten

Staaten,” Neue Zeit, 1891-92, VoL X, No. 7, p. 206.

64 James C. Sylvis, op. cit., p. 181.

es John R. Commons and others, op. cit., pp. 158-69.

“£om proceedings of the Iron Molders International Union Con-
vention, Boston, 1867.

68 Workingmen’s Advocate, Dec. 26, 1868.

69 James C. Sylvis, op. cit., p. 233.

70 Ibid., p. 841.

71 IMd.

72 John R. Commons and others, op. cit., p. 227.

73 Workingmen’s Advocate, Sept. 11, 1869.

74 Ibid., Sept. 4, 1869.

75 John R. Commons and others, op. cit., p. 72.

76 E. D. Fite, Industrial Conditions in the North During

War, p. 186, New York, 1910.

77 Report on Condition of Women and Child Wage Earners in the

P U^d States. Senate Document, No, 6«, 61st Congress, 2nd
Session, 1909-10, Vol. IX, p. 17.

78 James C. Sylvis, op. cit., p. 218.

79 Ibid., p. 222.

so The Revolution, Sept. 21, 1868, Vol. II, No. 13, p. 204.
si Ibid., p. 200.

120

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

82 Ibid., Vol. I, July 2, 1868, No. 26, p. 405.

83 Ibid.

84 James C. Sylvis, op. tit., pp. 144-51.

85 From proceedings of the Iron Molders International Union Con-

vention, Boston, 1867.

86 From an address to the Iron Molders International Union Con-

vention, Boston, 1867.

87 Ibid.

88 Karl Marx, Letters to Kugelmann, p. 40, New York, 1934.

89 Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. T, p. 287, New York, 1939.

so JI. Schlueter, The First International, p. 58, Chicago, 1918.
si For full text of all three letters, see Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels, The Civil War in the United States, pp. 279-83, New
York, 1937.

92 Full text in Reconstruction : The Rattle for Democracy, by James
S. Allen, pp. 247-48, New York, 1937.

03 J ohn R. Commons and others, op. tit., p. 340.

04 James C. Sylvis, op. tit., p. 268.
os Ibid., p. 266.

96 Circular to trade unions, Oct. 1868. See James C. Sylvis, op. tit.,
p. 8.

07 Founding of the First International, p. 36, New York, 1937.

98 Iron Molders Journal, Jan. 1868.

99 The Revolution, June 4, 1868, Vol. I, No. 22, p. 339.

100 From proceedings of the National Labor Union, p. 26, New York,

1868.

101 James C. Sylvis, op. tit., p. 80.

102 Ibid., p. 324.

los John R. Commons and others, History of Labor in the United
States, Vol. II, p. 47, New York, 1918.

104 Workingmen’s Advocate, Aug. 7, 1869.

los Reprinted in Workingmen’s Advocate, Sept 18, 1869.

ioo The Revolution, Aug. 26, 1869, Vol. IV, No. 8, p. 120.

appendix

Report of A. C. Cameron, delegate of the National
Labor Union to the International Working-
men’s Association at Basle, and Eulogy of
William II. Sylvis *

The President then called on Mr. Cameron, the American
delegate, to address the meeting. He said: Mr. President and
Members of the fourth International Congress —It gives me
great pleasure, I assure you, in the name and m behalf of the
working men of America, to tender you their heartfelt sym-
pathies. and hid you God speed in the noble work in which
you are engaged-the elevation and emancipation of the toiling
millions throughout the world, and the advance of those glo-
rious times t

When man to man the world o er

Shall brothers be and a’ that ;

when the sword shall be turned into the plowshare, and the
spear into the pruning-hook ; when tyranny and oppression o
every kind and character shall be uprooted and destroyed, an
when the laborer, intelligent and disenthralled, shall occupy
that position which the Maker of all intended he should occupy
-to reap the full reward of his labor. My presence here
today, my fellow-delegates, is an evidence that your friends
in the New World recognize a common interest existing be-
tween the sons of labor the world oyer, and that they trust

• Excerpt from report of proceedings of session of the fourth congress
of the International Workingmen’s Association (First International),
held at Basic, Switzerland, September, 1869.

121

122

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

the time is drawing nigh when their ranks shall present a
united front, under a banner upon whose ample folds shall be
inscribed the words, “Truth, Justice, and Equality,” they shall
march to certain victory. The workmen of our association have
cut themselves off from both the political parties which have
hitherto occupied such a prominent position, believing that the
interests of labor, both in our State and National Councils
must be represented by those taken from the ranks of labor,
and that so long as our laws are framed by those whose inter-
ests under our defective social system are antagonistic to our
own, and whose selfish interests demand their perpetuation,
it is useless, and worse than useless, to expect redress from
those who have created the evils of which we complain, unless
we proceed on the homeopathic principle, “Similia similibus
curantur” a principle which we think we have recognized long
enough. But I forbear. To those desirous of leaving the over-
crowded districts of the Old World, and seeking a home beyond
the sea —

Where a man is a man, if he's 'willing to toil,

And the poorest may reap of the fruits of the soil,

I am instructed to extend a cordial invitation and hearty wel-
come. To all such I say, “You will find friends and brothers
ready to take you by the hand.” All we ask is that you will
come as friends, prepared to strengthen our hands, and sup-
port us in the demand for the right, and we ask no more; and
refuse to allow yourselves to be made the tools of designing
men, who, under the specious pretense of subserving your
interests, are aiming only to thwart and humiliate the aims of
your best and truest friends — the trades’ unionists of America.
The establishment of an Emigration Bureau, under the joint
control of the American Labor Union and the International
Working Men's Association, from which reliable data could at

APPENDIX

123

b , a,,,*

" 2“ St- >- - *•

an extraordinary force o c ara q nize an d consolidate
was of all leaders the one qua i in t j ie ver y zenith

the labor element in the New Jor ^ ^ un£oldillg itself, and
of his fame, when . fruits, his loss is

„„ ,m b.

::r; ». ,u

followers to more united end dcte ™“ Ietnrn T ou my

In conclusion allow me my reception w lnch I

sincere thanks for the kind an ^ pleasure

have rcceived at yonr han s an J Let my visit,

to communicate the natur h wfll secure

gentlemen, be the inau^ration ^ our

the attendance of the repre fraternal meetings the

future annual conferences as rom there fore, you will

happiest results may be anherpated. ^ Congr ess, in

follow our example that m o of reluI „ing the

August, 1870, we shall lmve ‘ ; ^esentative a true West-
compliment, and return! g y the desire of my

ern welcome. Again accept my ^ ^e and prosperity,
constituents, for your continued usefulness an P I

, i Trench and German, and

This oration was translate & Iause aS Mr. Cameron

received with the same en this slight difference,

had been on his entry into the hall,

124

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

that it was not quite so unanimous, as all the delegates did not
understand the three languages, and had to wait their turn to
understand the drift of it.

The President replied with a few pertinent remarks, express-
ing a hope that a European delegate may return the compli-
ment next year in Cincinnati, and assuring Mr. Cameron that
the loss of the late Mr. Sylvia was appreciated by the working
men of Europe, and particularly by the members of the Asso-
ciation. Anything that seriously affected the working class
movement in either hemisphere must necessarily react upon
the other, as the progress made in either was to a certain extent
a stimulus to exertion in the other.

INDEX

Abolition and abolitionist move-
ment, 11/., 25, 55, 91; see
Slavery.

American Emigrant Company,

71, 86.

American Miners’ Association,

45, 60.

Anthony, Susan B., 57, 79/., 99.
Anti-draft riots, 32.

Anti-monopoly movement, 7,
12/., 34, 51; see Monopolies.
Anti-slavery movement ; see Abo-
lition, Slavery.

Applegarth, Robert, 89.
Apprenticeship system, 15, 19, 62.

Bill of Rights, 14.

Brotherhood of Locomotive En-
gineers, 28, 60.

Cameron, A. C., 51, 65, 89, 90,
112, 113, 121/.

Cameron, Secretary of War, 30.
Cary, Samuel F., 66, 100.

Chase, Salmon P., 66.

Civil War, 7, 14, 20, 22/., 27, 35,
42, 43, 45, 60, 64, 80, 91, 108;
profiteering during, 29/., 45.
Collar Laundry Working
Women’s Union, 84.

Colored National Labor Union,
78.

Committee of Thirty-Four, 23,
26.

Committee on Corners, 10.
Committee on Negro Labor, 74.

Co-operatives, 49, 55, 61, 70, 71,
93-97, 100; in Great Britain,

85; Karl Marx on, 95 f.
Copperhead, 32.

Cost of living, 33, 36, 42, 45, 51,

52, 53, 80.

Crises of 1837, 9; of 1857, 10, 16,
28; of 1861, 28; of 1866-67, 52,

53, 93.

Currency reforms, see Monetary
reforms.

Day, Horace H., 89.

Declaration of Principles, 71, 76,

100 .

Democratic Party, 12, 13, 22, 24,
66, 106, 107.

Democrats, 11, 23, 24.

Douai, Adolph, 25.

Douglas, Stephen, 23.

Eccarius, George, 111.

Education, struggle for, 12, 19,
49, 50, 66, 63, 82.

Eight-hour day, for government
employees, 69; for women, 83;
League for, 54, 55, 65, 70, 8_,
99, 104; legislation for, 69, 104,
107; movement for, 20, 49, 61,
53/., 56, 58/., 61, 63, ,66, 69,
71, 72, 74, 88, 99, 104, 10o, 108,
109.

Ely, Richard T., 12.

Emigrant Aid Society, see Amer-
ican Emigrant Co.

Engels, Frederick, 54».

Evens, George Henry, 13.

126

|

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

Farmers, 7 /., 11, 14, 33, 70, 107.

Fincher, Jonathan, 28, 49, 58, 63,
99, 100.

Fincher’s Trades’ Review, 49/.

First International, 87, 108; see
International Workingmen’s
Association.

Foreign-born workers, 24; and
Lincoln, 24.

Free land, movement for, 11/.,
61, 71, 72.

Freedmen’s Bureau, 75.

Free Soil movement, 11/., 61.

German workingmen, 26; immi-
gration of, 7, 25.

German Workingmen’s Associa-
tion, 60.

German Workingmen’s Society,
25.

Grant, President Ulysses S., 104/.

Greenback movement, 32, 34n.,
61, 70, 79, 95, 100, 108; see
Monetary reform. Money re-
formers.

Harding, William, 59.

Homestead legislation, 13, 14, 15,
33, 63».

International Molders Union, 8,
35/., 53/., 97.

International Workingmen’s As-
sociation, 60, 82, 87/., 95, 96,
108, 111, 112, 122/., , e e First
International.

Irish workingmen, immigration
of, 7.

Iron Molders, 30, 16/., 23, 28, 29,
42, 45, 50, 52, 55, 56, 58, 66,
86, 93, 96; unions of, 10, 11,
16, 18, 50, 54, 103, 104.

Iron Molders’ Co-operative and
Protective Union, 100.

Iron Molders’ International
Union, 6, 16 /., 22/., 36/., 50,
53/., 97, 113; and system of
finances, 36/.; see National
Union of Iron Molders.

Iron Molders’ Journal, 51, 63, 97.

Jeffersonian tradition, 7, 8, 57.

Jessup, W. J., 88, 98, 99.

Johnson, President Andrew, 62,
63, 104; and International

Workingmen’s Association, 91.

Kellogg, Edward, 34n.

Knights of Labor, 15, 109.

Independent political action, 12,
26/., 39, 60, 63, 66/., 71, 79,
84, 95, 99, 100, 106, 108; see
Labor Party.

Industrial system, growth of, 29,
30/., 34, 55.

Inflation, 32, 70; see Greenback
movement, Monetary reforms.

International Industrial As-
sembly of North America, 58.

International labor unity, 85/.,
115.

Labor lobby, 104.

Labor party, 12, 24, 27, 60, 61,
64-69, 79, 84, 95, 100, 102, 105,
106, 115; see Independent po-
litical action.

Labor press, 49/., 63.

Labor Reform Party, 106, 108.
Labor’s rights, 41/., 48/., 53, 56.
Lund monopoly, 33, 42.

Land reform, 13, 15, 33, 34, 62.
Land Reform Association, 55.

INDEX

Liberty Party, 12.

Lincoln, Abraham, 22, 23, 24, 25,
26, 43, 44, 61, 66, 79, 91; Karl
Marx and, 91/.

MacDonald, Mary, 82.

Machinists and Blacksmiths Un-
ion, 28, 54, 60, 103.

Marx, Karl, 25, 54, 87/., 95, 96,
111; and Abraham Lincoln,
91/.; on National Labor Union,
88; on Sylvis, 111.

Marxists, early American, 25,

60ft.

McMichael, Morton, 65.

Mechanic’s Oxen. 24.

Molders, see Iron molders.

Monetary reform, 32, 34, 51, 55,
61, 66, 70, 71, 79, 89, 94, 99,
100, 107, 108.

“Money power,” 34, 55, 93/.; see
Wali Street.

Monopolies, 34, 42, 72, 93, 102 ;
see Anti-monopoly movement.

Morgan, J. Pierpont, 80/.

Mullaney, Kate, 84.

Myer, Herman, 60ft.

Myers, Isaac, 78.

Nation, 49n.

National federation, 18, 57, 58.

National federation of Trade
unions, 57/., 108.

National Labor Union, 8, 34 n., 51,
62-60, 65, 66, 69, 70/., 72, 76,
78/., 79/., 82, 102/.; and

International Workingmen’s
Association, 87/.; first con-
gress of, 59/., second congress
of, 70/.; third congress of,
97/.

National organization, 15/., 20,
21, 28, 29, 36.

National Union of Iron Molders,
19, 20, 28/., 36.

National Workman, 88.

Negroes, 7, 8, 11, 15, 27, 42, 54,
62, 78, 84, 107, 114/.; in trade
unions, 71, 73-79.

New National Party of America,
84.

New York Herald, 22.

New York Tribune, 107.

North American Federation of
the First International, 90n.

Oberklcinc, Fred, 25.

Organization of workers, see
Trade unions.

Peace convention, of labor, 23/.;

of Democratic Party, 23/.
Pendleton, George H., 66.
Philadelphia Trades Assembly,
58.

Phillips, Wendell, 13, 55.
PowdeTly, Terence V., 15.
Putnam, Mary Kellog, 82.

Radical Republicans, 32, 62, 75,
79.

Railroads, development of, 14, 33.
Republican Party, 11, 13, 14, 22,
23, 24, 25, 32, 33, 65, 66.
Revolution, The, 67, 82, 83, 84,
112 .

Rosccrans, Major General Wil-
liam, 43/.

Sandburg, Carl, 42.

Schlegel, Edward, 60.

Secession, 22, 24.

128

WILLIAM H. SYLVIS

Sheppard, Isaac A., 17.

Slave power, 8, 11, 14, 32, 62.
Slavery, 8, 11, 13, 14, 26, 54, 62.
Socialists, 11.

Social Party, 9 On.

Sons of Vulcan, 28, GOn.

Sorge, Frederick, 54n., 60, 71, 90.
Springfield Republican, 43.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 80/.,
99, 100, 112.

State Workingman’s Assembly,

88 .

Stevens, Thaddcus, 32n.

Steward, Ira, 54, 55, 99.
Strikebreaking, 43/., 73, 86.
Strikes, 10, 12, 19, 20, 37, 40/. ,
45, 53, 55, 67, 93, 94, 96, 97,
101; funds for, 37; of dock-
workers, 45; of machinists, 45;
of miners, 108; of molders, 10,
17, 29, 42a., 64, 93 ; of printers,
44; of shipyard workers, 44;
of shoe workers, 44; of tailers,
45.

Sumner, Charles, 54n.

Tariff, 33.

Ten-hour day, 104.

Trade assemblies, 28, 57, 62/.
Trade unions, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15,
23, 24, 27, 28, 42, 43, 48, 51, 55,
57, 61, 62, 70, 74, 94, 97, 103;
German workers in, 25; in
Europe, 67, 87; in Great Bri-
tain, 85; system of finances for,
36, 37; women in, 79/.; see
Trade assemblies; Unioniza-
tion; Labor’s rights.

Trevellick, Richard, 89, 99, 103,
106, 110, 113.

Trollope, Anthony, 35.

Unemployment, 14, 16, 22, 28, 53,
70, 72, 94.

Unions, see Trade unions.
Unionization, growth of in 1872,
108; of coal miners, 103; of
printers, 16, 60.

United States Department of La-
bor, proposal for establish-
ment of, 101.

Van Buren, President Martin,
104.

Wages, 15, 19, 33, 35, 42, 44, 49,
52, 53, 65, 75, 80/., 104, 105;
for Negroes, 75; for women
workers, 80/.

Wall Street, 34, 77, 94; see
“Money Power.”

Weed, Thurlow, 30.

Wells, Secretary of Navy, 30.
Weydemeyer, Joseph, 25, 27, 45,
60n.

Whaley, J. C. C., 98.

Whigs, 11, 22.

Wilson, General James, 31.
Wilson, Henry, 54.

Woman’s rights movement, 57,
79-85, 100.

Woman’s Suffrage Association,
57, 82.

Women’s Labor Union of Mount
Vernon, 82.

Women workers, 42, 62, 71, 79-85,
114, 115.

Workingmen’s Advocate, 51, 63n.,
75, 102, 105, 110/.

Working Women’s Protective
Union, 81, 82.

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